Mary Wakeford Harries

Mary Wakeford (1760-1824) later Harries, was the namesake and only daughter of Mary Steele’s aunt, Mary Steele Wakeford (1724-72). She would marry James Lloyd Harries [Harris] of Andover on 24 February 1789. The only extant copy of Anne Steele’s Verses for Children (Bampton, 1803), now belonging to Columbia Teacher’s College, New York, was owned and signed by Mary Harries; she also appears in the Steele Correspondence (STE 6) and Jane Attwater’s diary. Elizabeth Coltman met her on one of her trips to the West Country and composed a poem in her honor, “To Mrs. Harries, On receiving a Beautiful Vase for Flowers ornamented with a Picture of Abra.” See Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011),  vol. 3.