Life
1700-1788; [or Delaney, but recte Delany; formerly Mrs. Pendarves], b.
Coulston, Wiltshire, dg. Col. Granville and neice of Lord Lansdowne, who
was sent to the Tower with the Earl of Oxford; raised by Lady Stanley
at Whitehall, her husband being Lord chamberlain; Longleat; her first
marriage, at 17, to an ‘ugly and disagreeable’ and gouty old
Cornish squire of 60 towards whom she felt ‘an invincible aversion’,
and felt herself ‘a sacrifice’; Pendarves d. 1724; unsigned
will; refuged with the Stanleys; Lady Stanley d. 1730, and with Miss Donnellan
came to Ireland on a visit to a sister, Mrs. Clayton, wife of Bishop of
Killala, Sept. 1731-May 33, moving with them from Dublin to Co. Mayo;
m. Patrick Delany [infra]; invented ‘flower mosaic’, and secured
deanery of Down for Patrick Delany by influence, 1744; occupied the Deanery
but spent only fourteen-and-a-half of the ensuing twenty-five years in
Ireland; friend of Swift; introduced Fanny Burney at court; liked Delany
best of all she met when in Ireland first; in April 1743, she received
his letter of proposal (‘I have long been persuaded that perfect
friendship is nowhere to be found but in marriage ... I am old, and I
appear older than I am, but thank God I am still in health, a good clear
income ... a good house, a good many books, a pleasant garden, etc. Would
to God I might have leave to lay them all at your feet’); match opposed
by Lord Carteret; asked by [Maria] Duchess of Portland to write recollections
in a series of letters to her, commencing from the year 1714 when the
death of Queen Anne altered fortunes of the Granville family; m. Patrick
Delany, 9 June, 1743; resided at Delville (orig. Hel-Del-ville’,
after the names of Delany and the former owner Helsham), Glasnevin, the
house where they entertained Swift; credited with the first attempt at
modern gardening in Ireland; in 1745-46 Mrs Delany and Dublin ladies determined
to buy the produce of the Irish weavers, then enduring hunger; received
visit of Lord and Lady Chesterfield, then Lord Lieutenant, Oct. 1745;
took her ailing husband to Bath, 1754; Dr. Delany d. 1768; Anne Dewes,
her sister and correspondent d. 1761; continues in correspondence with
niece, Mary; friendship with Duchess of Portland, with whom she resided;
visited by Garricks and others; Jan. 1783, met Fanny Burney who has left
account in her Diary (benevolence, softness, piety, and gentleness
are all resident in her face’; a literary sketch of her written by
Dr Delanyy for The Humanist, 1757, which she refused to allow published,
extant; Burke called her woman of fashion; Fanny Burney records she always
greeted the Duchess with the same ceremony as if the first meeting; d.
15 April; ten volumes of her celebrated "Flora", with 980 carefully
constructed model of flowers (‘paper mosiacks’) copied in real
botanical detail, are preserved in the British Museum. DNB OCEL FDA
OCIL
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Works
Lady Llanover [descended from Anne Dewes], ed., The Autobiography and
Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany, 1st and 2nd series,
6 vols. (1861-62).
Angélique Day, ed., Letters from Georgian Ireland: Correspondence of Mary Delany, 1731-68 (Friar’s Bush Press 1991).
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Criticism
Mrs Esther Morris, ‘The Delanys of Delville’, Dublin Historical
Record, 9, 4 (Dec. 1947-Feb.1948), pp.105-116.
Mrs Esther Morris, ‘The Delanys of Delville’, Dublin Historical Record, 9, 4 (Dec. 1947-Feb.1948), pp.105-116.
Constantia Maxwell, ‘Mrs Delany, the English Wife of an Irish Dean’, Strangers in Ireland (1954), Chp. XIII, pp.136-62; includes portrait by John Opie.
Constantia Maxwell, Country and Town in Ireleand Under the Georges (1940; rev. ed. 1949); Ruth Hayden, Mrs Delaney: Her Life and Her Flowers (BML Press 1980; rep. 1986; new edn. 1992, 2000).
Constantia Maxwell (The Stranger in Ireland, 1954).
Patricia Craig, ed., The Rattle of the North (Blackstaff 1992), contains a selection of her letters, 8th August - 8th Oct. 1958 (here pp.65-70).
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Notes
Maurice Craig complains
of Douglas Bennett’s Encyclopaedia of Dublin (1992) that the
‘name of Mrs Delany is again mispelled on pages 53 and 84.;
Mary Delaney she is a character in a Rosa Mulholland novel, O’Loghlin of Clare (1916), set c.1746. SEE also Simon Dewes, Mrs Delany (Rich and Cowan [n.d.]), il. [Whelan Cat. 32].
Robert Ward (George Faulkner’s Letters, 1972) cites verse squib copied by Mary Delany to Mrs Dewes, ‘A disease this scribbling [itch] is / His Lordship on his Pliny vain / Twas Madam Pilkington in stitches / And now attacks the Irish Dean / Libel his friend when laid in ground / Pray good Sir, you may spare your hints / This parallel I’m sure is found / For what he writes George Faulkner prints / Had Swift provoked to this behaviour / Sure after death resentment cools / And his last act bespoke [a favour?] / He founds a hospitable for fools.’
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)