Nationality British Died 13 April 1940 | Ethnicity English | |
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Mary Bathurst Deane (1843 – 13 April 1940) was an English novelist.
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Life
The daughter of John Bathurst Deane, Deane was a Victorian gentlewoman of many accomplishments. She published fourteen books, mostly novels, was a good amateur artist, and never married. She was also an aunt of the writer P. G. Wodehouse and in his work was the original of Bertie Wooster's fictional Aunt Agatha, the most alarming of Bertie's many aunts.
As a descendant of John of Gaunt through his daughter Joan Beaufort, Deane had distant royal blood. She was one of the thirteen children of her father's marriage to Louisa Elizabeth Fourdrinier, of Tottenham. Her grandfather, Sealy Fourdrinier (1773–1847) and his older brother Henry (1766–1854) had invented the paper machine, but had gone bankrupt in developing it.
Her brother Walter Meredith Deane (1840–1906) was a civil servant in Hong Kong. Her sister Eleanor (1861–1941) married Henry Ernest Wodehouse on 3 February 1877, and another sister, Emmeline (died 1944), became an artist. After their father died in 1887, their mother and her four remaining unmarried daughters moved to Cheney Court, Ditteridge, near Box, which became P. G. Wodehouse's home while his parents were living in Hong Kong. His grandmother died in 1892, and he was largely brought up by his aunts.
In a letter dated 14 January 1955, Wodehouse wrote "Aunt Agatha is definitely my Aunt Mary, who was the scourge of my childhood." According to Richard Usborne, a leading Wodehouse scholar, "His Aunt Mary (Deane) harried and harassed him a good deal, and blossomed later into Bertie's Aunt Agatha. Aunt Mary honestly considered that her harrying and harassing of the young Pelham was for his good; and she may have been right." However, Deane took great delight in society, not least in her friendship with her contemporary Lord Sherborne, who is mentioned often in her diary.
When Deane died in April 1940, she was living at a house called The Retreat, in Fairford, Gloucestershire. She left an estate valued at £473, and probate was granted to her sister Ella Marjory Waldron.
Some of Deane's diaries and personal papers have survived, leading to the publication of a biography of her in 2016.