author
Harriet Annie Wilkins
1829–1888
An English-born Canadian poet and teacher, she wrote with a strong sense of public feeling, turning local tragedies, faith, and everyday life into verse. Her work offers a vivid glimpse of literary life in 19th-century Hamilton, Ontario.
1 Audiobook
Victor Roy, a Masonic Poem
by Harriet Annie Wilkins
About the author
Born in Bath, England, in 1829, Harriet Annie Wilkins moved with her family to Hamilton, Ontario, around 1846, after her father accepted a Congregationalist post there. She supported herself as a teacher and became known in the city as both an educator and a writer.
Wilkins published several books of poetry and is remembered as one of the early literary figures of Hamilton. Her poems often responded to events around her, including The Great Railway Catastrophe of the 12th March, 1857, on the Desjardin Canal Bridge, and she also wrote Victor Roy: A Masonic Poem.
She died in Hamilton on January 7, 1888. Though not widely known today, her writing preserves the voice of a 19th-century poet closely connected to her community and its history.