Mary Morris Knowles (1733–1807), was an English Quaker poet and abolitionist. She spoke out in favour of choosing her own spouse, argued on behalf of scientific education for women, helped develop a new form of needle painting, confronted Samuel Johnson, defied James Boswell, and supported abolition of the slave trade and slavery. She published several works under her maiden name, Morris.
Life
Early life
She was born into a prosperous family of third generation Quakers in Rugeley, Staffordshire, in 1733. Mary was brought up with practical education in her parents' house, but her education also spanned many secular subjects. She learned to write poetry, cite the classics, employ Latin phrases and analyze current scientific theories. Accomplished in the arts, she wrote a ‘fine hand’, learned to paint and draw, held a good understanding of botany and was apparently fluent in French.
She did not confine her friendships to Quakers. It was during her teens that she formed a lasting friendship with the younger Anna Seward, the daughter of an Anglican cleric in nearby Lichfield. Anna's father, the Reverend Thomas Seward was a supporter of education for girls, and Anna had also had a full education and studied science, English translations of the classics, and poetry. Mary also found a friend in a contemporary of her parents, Sampson Lloyd II of Birmingham. Lloyd's family business became the banking dynasty, founders of Lloyds Bank. Mary referred to members of this prominent family as her 'cousins' and may have been related to them on her mother's side. It was at the Lloyds' home, known simply as the Farm, in the 1750s where Mary designed some of the gardens.
The young woman
Mary resisted family and religious authority. She exercised her right to choose her own spouse: amongst Quakers during at time it was a high priority for women to be married suitably. This led to a fiery dispute between Mary and John Kendal, a Quaker disciplinarian, and to Mary writing "Memoirs of M.M., Spinster of the Parish", a letter to Kendall but also a social text showing how opinions differed concerning the education and conduct of women, the preparations for domestic life and particularly a woman's freedom to choose her spouse. Within the "Memoirs" Mary also wrote a short essay entitled "the Pudding Making Mortal". In this essay she argued that since "accidents may happen to the best puddings in the world," every housewife should be taught science. It compares how she and other well-educated sisters would react to a bursting bag of pudding compared to others not so well-educated. She believed, similarly to her contemporary Elizabeth Carter, that intellectual rigour could be applied to cooking as in other areas of study.
Marriage
In 1767, at the age 34, Mary Morris married Thomas Knowles, a Quaker apothecary from Yorkshire, but she resolved not to become ‘a poor passive machine ... a mere smiling Wife.’ Despite her earlier resistance to marriage, she wed happily. By April 1768 she was six months pregnant. She experienced a difficult childbirth, and recorded her fears and sufferings through letters and heroic poems. In July 1768 Mary almost died delivering her son, Morris, who lived for one day. After her recovery from the childbirth, Mary and Thomas moved to Birmingham, which was closer to her mother as well as offering an expanding array of economic, social, and cultural opportunities. It is here that she changed their lives through her artistic accomplishment, despite the deaths of her younger sister and mother.
Needlework
It was during the 1770s that British arts in many forms flourished under the patronage of King George III and Queen Charlotte. While the king favored the high minded historical paintings of Benjamin West, an American born artist, the queen took a special interest in art made by women. In 1768 she had helped to establish a needlework school for women at Ampthill in Buckinghamshire.