Name Maria Saffery | Role Poet | |
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Maria Grace Saffery (née Andrews) (1773–1858) was a Baptist poet and hymn-writer.
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Early life
Maria Grace Saffery was born 1773 and died 5 March 1858 in Westbury district Wiltshire, England. Saffery was possibly the daughter of William Andrews of Stroud Green, Newbury, Berkshire although other sources differ. She was baptized on 30 November 1774. At the age of fifteen, she started writing her first big piece and showed great abilities in doing so. Her first poem was about Chait Singh, the Raja of Benares who was in dispute with Warren Hastings in India. Saffery was originally brought under the personal influence of Thomas Scott, the bible commentator.
Personal and family life
Maria Saffery had a sister named Anne, who was also a writer. Maria married John Saffery pastor of the Baptist church at Brown Street in Salisbury, becoming his second wife, in 1799. They had six children, the eldest, Philip John Saffery, succeeded to the office of paster of the church at his father's death in 1825. Saffery also created a girls' school in Salisbury. The next year she retired to Bratton in Wiltshire, where the rest of her life was spent with her daughter and later died and was buried in the graveyard of the baptist chapel at the school.