Margaret Holford

Margaret Holford (1778–1852) (also published as Margaret Hodson) was an English poet and translator. Her most successful work was a historical verse romance, Wallace, or, The Fight of Falkirk (1809). Life Her mother, also Margaret Holford (1757–1834) was likewise an author, and their works have sometimes been confused in bibliographies. Her father, Allen Holford, died when Margaret Holford the younger was a child. She was the eldest of her parents' four daughters and educated herself through reading at home. Years later, she travelled to France and claimed that she was able to communicate with any of the locals whom she spoke there. Holford was baptised on 1 June 1778 in Chester and on 16 October 1826 married Septimus Hodson (1768–1833), chaplain in ordinary to the Prince of Wales, who was then Anglican rector of Thrapston, Northamptonshire. She was his third wife. The marriage took place in South Kirkby, Yorkshire and they lived in Sharow Lodge, Ripon. Her later work was published under her married name, Margaret Hodson. Her husband died in 1833. After her husband's death, she stayed with a Mrs. Lawrence, a woman who owned the estate of Studley Park in Ripon. By 1835 Holford had bought a cottage in Plantation Terrace, Dawlish on the Devon Coast and remained there until she died at home on 11 September 1852.