{{Short description|Scottish diarist}} '''Janet "Jessy" Harden,''' n. '''Allan''' (25 February 1776 to c.1837) was a Scottish diarist who wrote 32 small volumes, considered exclusive documentations of the Edinburgh New Town society. Her diaries cover the period from 1804 to 1811. Her writing described the daily life of her family's affairs to update her sister, Agnes Ranken, who was living in India with her husband.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |title=The new biographical dictionary of Scottish women |date=2018 |editor=Elizabeth Ewan |isbn=978-1-4744-3629-8 |location=Edinburgh |pages=189 |oclc=1057237368}}</ref>
== Biography == Harden was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 25 February 1776. Her father, Robert Allan, was a banker, and the owner of the newspaper Caledonian Mercury. Her mother was Margaret Learmonth.<ref name=":0" />
Harden and her husband John lived for some time at Brathay Hall near Ambleside in Cumbria, England, renting it from Henry Law who had inherited it in 1802 on the death of his father, George Law, its builder.<ref name="thomas">{{cite news |last1=Thomas |first1=Andrew |title=Family members return to the home of their ancestors near Ambleside |url=https://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/17379531.family-members-return-home-ancestors-near-ambleside/ |access-date=30 January 2023 |work=The Westmorland Gazette |date=3 February 2019 |language=en}}</ref> Their guests there included Wordsworth, Coleridge and Constable, and the lounge bar of the hall, now an educational and holiday centre, is named "The Harden Bar" in their memory.<ref>{{cite web |title=Cheers to Brathay Hall's historic lounge bar! |url=https://www.brathay.org.uk/news/three-cheers-to-brathay-halls-historic-lounge-bar/ |website=Brathay Trust |access-date=30 January 2023 |date=28 February 2020}}</ref> The British Museum has an 1806 drawing by John Harden described as "Portrait group of five figures, including John Constable making a drawing of Jessy Harden; five figures seated around table at Brathay Hall".<ref>{{cite web |title=Description and image of Harden's drawing |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1962-0210-1 |website=The British Museum |publisher=British Museum |access-date=30 January 2023 |language=en}}</ref>
== Diaries and letters == Harden diaries and letters are held in the Archives and Manuscripts Collections of the National Library of Scotland.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Catalogue of Archives and Manuscripts Collections {{!}} National Library of Scotland {{!}} NLSMSS {{!}} Drawings and journals chiefly of John Harden, a landowner from Tipperary and an accomplished amateur water-colourist, and of his wife Jessy, the daughter of Robert Allan, the Edinburgh banker, and an assiduous diarist. |url=https://manuscripts.nls.uk/repositories/2/resources/10766 |access-date=2023-01-27 |website=manuscripts.nls.uk}}</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * {{cite book |last1=Dybeck |first1=Maurice |title=Jessy's journal : Jessy & John, the Hardens of Brathay Hall 1804-1811 : the journal of Jessy Harden 1804 to 1811 (letters to her sister in India) : with drawings and paintings by John Harden |date=2015 |publisher=Brathay Hall Trust |location=Ambleside, Cumbria |isbn=9780952920045}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Harden, Janet}} Category:1776 births Category:1837 deaths Category:18th-century Scottish autobiographers Category:18th-century Scottish women Category:19th-century Scottish diarists Category:19th-century Scottish women writers Category:British women diarists Category:Writers from Edinburgh