# Dora Wordsworth

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{{short description|Daughter of William Wordsworth}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2022}}
{{Use British English|date=June 2012}}

{{Infobox person
| name               = Dora Wordsworth
| birth_name         = Dorothy Wordsworth
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1804|8|16|df=y}}
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1847|7|9|1804|8|16|df=y}}
| resting_place      = [St Oswald's Church, Grasmere](/source/St_Oswald's_Church%2C_Grasmere), [Cumbria](/source/Cumbria), England
| parents            = [William Wordsworth](/source/William_Wordsworth) <br/> Mary Hutchinson
| spouse             = [Edward Quillinan](/source/Edward_Quillinan) (1843–1847; her death)
}}

'''Dorothy''' "'''Dora'''" '''Wordsworth'''<ref>{{cite web|website=England, Births and Christenings, 1538–1975, index, FamilySearch|access-date=23 August 2012|url=https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NR9X-1X5|title=Dorothy Wordsworth, 16 Sep 1804|format=citing reference, FHL microfilm 97368}}</ref> (16 August 1804 – 9 July 1847) was the daughter of poet [William Wordsworth](/source/William_Wordsworth) (1770–1850) and his wife Mary Hutchinson. Her infancy inspired William Wordsworth to write "Address to My Infant Daughter"<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bartleby.com/145/ww265.html|title=Address to my infant daughter, Dora|last=Wordsworth|first=William|author-link=William Wordsworth|website=Bartleby.com|access-date=2020-04-21}}</ref> in her honour. As an adult, she was further immortalised by him in the 1828 poem "The Triad",<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/encap//romtext/articles/rt15_n03.html|title=The Perfect Match: Wordsworth's 'The Triad' and Coleridge's 'Garden of Boccacio' in Context|last=Furr|first=Derek|date=2005|website=Cardiff University|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060501125918/http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/encap//romtext/articles/rt15_n03.html|archive-date=1 May 2006}}</ref> along with Edith Southey<ref name="kathleenjones">{{cite web|last=Jones|first=Katherine|url=http://www.kathleenjones.co.uk/books/sisterhd.html|title=Introduction to the Passionate Sisterhood}}</ref> and [Sara Coleridge](/source/Sara_Coleridge), daughters of her father's fellow [Lake Poets](/source/Lake_Poets). In 1843, at the age of 39, Dora Wordsworth married [Edward Quillinan](/source/Edward_Quillinan). While her father initially opposed the marriage, the "temperate but persistent pressure" exerted by [Isabella Fenwick](/source/Isabella_Fenwick), a close family friend, convinced him to relent.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Taylor|first=Henry|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gxdHAAAAYAAJ&q=autobiography+of+henry+taylor|title=The Autobiography of Henry Taylor, Volume 1|publisher=Longmans, Green and Co.|year=1885|location=London|pages=337}}</ref>

Throughout her life, Wordsworth formed intense romantic attachments to both men and women, the most significant being her friendship with [Maria Jane Jewsbury](/source/Maria_Jane_Jewsbury).<ref name="kathleenjones" /> Another close friend was [Maria Kinnaird](/source/Maria_Kinnaird), adoptive daughter of [Richard "Conversation" Sharp](/source/Richard_Sharp_(politician)) and the future wife of [Thomas Drummond](/source/Thomas_Drummond). Wordsworth and Kinnaird were friends from their teenage years and some of their correspondence has survived.<ref>MS University Library, Davis, California.<br />also, reproduced with permission in {{cite book|last=Knapman|first=David|title=Conversation Sharp: The Biography of a London Gentleman, Richard Sharp (1759–1835), in Letters, Prose and Verse|publisher=Dorset Press|year=2003|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1E8oywAACAAJ|type=Available at British Library}}</ref>

Described by her aunt and namesake Dorothy Wordsworth as "at times very beautiful",<ref>{{cite book|section=Dorothy Wordsworth to Jane Marshall, letter dated 19 December 1809|title=The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth|editor=Ernest de Selincourt|type=2 parts. Part 1: The Middle Years, 1806–1811. Revised by Mary Moorman. Part 2: The Middle Years, 1812–1820. Revised by Mary Moorman and Alan G. Hill.}}</ref> Dora Wordsworth was devoted to her father and a significant influence on his poetry. Their relationship was particularly close, with Coleridge's son Hartley describing how she "almost adored" him in an 1830 letter.<ref>{{cite book|author=Hartley Coleridge|title=Letters|page=112|date=30 August 1830}}</ref> 
However, Wordsworth also had literary abilities of her own, publishing a travel journal. Sara Coleridge complained after Wordsworth's death that her father's demands on her "frustrated a real talent".<ref>{{cite book|section=Introduction to Letters of Dora Wordsworth|page=11|title=Journal of a Few Months' Residence in Portugal, and Glimpses of the South of Spain, 2 vols|location=London|publisher=Edward Moxon|year=1847}}</ref>

Wordsworth died of tuberculosis at her parents' home, and is buried in the graveyard of [St Oswald's Church, Grasmere](/source/St_Oswald's_Church%2C_Grasmere), [Cumbria](/source/Cumbria), along with her parents and siblings, aunt Sarah Hutchinson, and [Hartley Coleridge](/source/Hartley_Coleridge), son of [Samuel Taylor Coleridge](/source/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/wordsworth.htm|title=Poets' Graves, William Wordsworth|access-date=4 November 2020}}</ref> After her death, her distraught father (who had already lost two of his children to illness), planted hundreds of daffodils in her memory in a field (later named Dora's Field) beside St. Mary's Church, [Rydal](/source/Rydal%2C_Cumbria).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.visitcumbria.com/amb/cha4.htm|title=St Mary's Church, Rydal|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509095248/http://www.visitcumbria.com/amb/cha4.htm |archive-date=9 May 2008 }}</ref> The site of Dora's Field, where daffodils are still cultivated today, is now owned by the [National Trust](/source/National_Trust_for_Places_of_Historic_Interest_or_Natural_Beauty).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.visitcumbria.com/amb/dorasfld.htm|title=Dora's Field with picture|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080510160046/http://www.visitcumbria.com/amb/dorasfld.htm|archive-date=10 May 2008 }}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{William Wordsworth}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wordsworth, Dora}}
Category:1804 births
Category:1847 deaths
Category:19th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Category:Tuberculosis deaths in England
Category:English children
Dora

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Dora Wordsworth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_Wordsworth) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_Wordsworth?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.