Anne Lefroy

Anne Brydges Lefroy (1747/8–1804) was an English writer. She wrote both prose and verse, some of which was published anonymously in her lifetime. Four years after Lefroy died, her friend Jane Austen wrote a poem lamenting her death. Early life Anne was the eldest child of Edward Brydges (d. 1780) of Wootton Court, Wootton, Kent, and his wife Jemima, née Egerton, daughter of the Reverend William Egerton of Penshurst, also in Kent. Her parents were married in about 1745. Edward Brydges worked in family businesses in Canterbury, co-inheriting Wootton Court in 1712 with his brother John. Anne was born probably in 1747, and was followed by Edward Timewell (or Tymewell) in 1749; Jane in 1750; John in 1752 (died in infancy); Deborah in 1755; John Egerton in 1758 (died in infancy); Charlotte Jemima, known as Jemima, in 1759; Samuel Egerton in 1762; John William Head in 1764; and Charlotte in 1766. Anne's brother Samuel was later to write about his sister: 'My eldest sister was fourteen years and a half older than me: she had an exquisite taste for poetry, and could almost repeat the chief English poets by heart, especially Milton, Pope, Collins, Gray, and the poetical passages of Shakespeare; and she composed easy verses herself with great facility.' As a young woman, Anne's occupations were reading, writing, and helping to educate her younger siblings. During the winter, the young Brydges would attend parties, dances and assemblies held in Canterbury. Anne wrote a number of poems for her siblings, several of which were collected after her death and published in a private edition by her son Christopher Edward in 1812.