Gerrald, Frances

Submitted by edpope on

12.6.1794 call on Gerald; see Mrs G / 20.7.1799 at Godwin's adv Eliza F, & FG, & H Robinson / 5.1.1800 Eliza Fenwick & FG call / 27.6.1806 miss Marner (with FG) at tea / 10.7.1806 miss Marner dines / 22.9.1806 Marner dines

The main source on the private life of Joseph Gerrald (DNB 1763-1796) is a Sketch written and published in 1795 by an anonymous friend who claimed to have known him for 30 years. (Gerrald would have been only 2 years old and just arrived back in England from the West Indies, so the writer was probably older than him and may have been his "private friend and instructor Mr Bennet" mentioned in the Sketch).Gerrald went back to the West Indies about 1780 and married "a lady of the connection or name of Brothers" and had a son and a daughter, both alive in 1795, their mother dying in the West Indies. Gerrald then lived in Philadelphia about 1784-88. In Warren Derry's book 'Dr Parr the Whig Dr Johnson' it's mentioned that Parr looked after Gerrald's illegitimate daughter, though the references he gives in Parr's Works (vol1 page786 & vol8 page206-12) seem to concern only Gerrald's son, who is also mentioned in Parr's will, but no daughter unless I missed something in this rather lengthy will (PCC 1825)

Frances Gerrald was baptised at St Marylebone on 2.1.1792, dau of Joseph & Frances, born 6.8.1791; (Elizabeth Frances Gerrald was baptised at St Marylebone on 6.9.1791, dau of Charles & Frances, born 6.8.1791). Div 1 of the London Corresponding Society on 30.1.1798 resolved that £8 raised for Citn Gerald should be given to his daughter. The DNB says Gerrald's young daughter visited him in prison. Eliza Fenwick in a letter to Mary Hays of 28.1.1799 (Wedd, Fate of the Fenwicks p4) talked of Fanny Gerrald in her bed keeping her awake, and she was surely the FG of Godwin's diary with Eliza Fenwick in 1799 and 1800 and with Miss Marner in 1806. At present I have no information except the above about Gerrald's wife, or a possible legitimate daughter, or Fanny Gerrald's mother, or what became of Fanny Gerrald. Nor can I identify Miss Marner at all.