author
Maria Arthington
1795–1863
A 19th-century English writer linked with Leeds Quaker circles, she published poetry, religious reflections, and writing for children. Her surviving work offers a glimpse of family life, faith, and everyday moral instruction in the early Victorian period.
1 Audiobook
Rhymes for Harry and His Nurse-Maid
by Maria Arthington
About the author
Born Maria Jowitt in 1795, she was the daughter of Joseph Jowitt and Grace Firth of the Leeds area. In 1816 she married Robert Arthington, a brewer of Hunslet Lane, Leeds, and she became part of a prominent Quaker family active in local religious life.
Her published work shows a wide range of interests. She wrote Rhymes for Harry and His Nurse-Maid, a collection of verses connected with early childcare and nursery life, and she also published religious and reflective works including Queries for Women Friends and A Few Remarks on the Leading Principles of Christian Faith. Another volume, Poetry of Bye-Gone Days, and Other Selected Pieces, points to her lasting interest in poetry and devotional writing.
Records connected with Leeds libraries and archives also show her as a maker of silhouette portraits, suggesting a creative life that reached beyond print. She died in 1863, and while she is not widely known today, her books and archival traces preserve the voice of a writer shaped by faith, family, and the culture of 19th-century Leeds.