Henrietta Colebrooke, translator of Rousseau

    In 1781, an anonymous translation of Diderot’s stage-play Le Père de Famille appeared in England. It is entitled "The Family Picture" and the translator is named on the title page as simply "A Lady". The list of subscribers included a lot of people of high rank, many of whom lived in Wiltshire or the Isle of Wight. It also included a lot of minor members of the Craven family. These include a "Mrs Craven", possibly Mrs Mary Craven, the mother of Lord Craven, "Mrs Liddiard of Bath" - the married name of Jane, sister of Lord Craven - and "Mr William Hicks and Mr John Hicks of Gloucester", cousins of Mrs Craven, whose maiden name was Hicks,

    These two clues lead me to wonder whether the Diderot play was translated by Miss Henrietta Colebrooke who is named in 1788 on the title page of  Thoughts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Selected from His Writings... and Translated by Miss Henrietta Colebrooke (2 volumes, London, 1788). The introduction says that not all of Rousseau's writings are admirable, and that this editor has selected “what is best adapted to the formation of rational views, sound moral principles, just taste and proper manners.”

    The "Hon Miss Craven" is found among the subscribers. This was the Hon. Elizabeth Craven, eldest daughter of the writer Elizabeth Craven and Lord Craven. Other subscribers include Sir George Colebrooke, Lady Colebrooke and five members of their family. There are far fewer nobility among this list of subscribers and far more who are listed as ordinary Mr, Mrs. or Miss.

Sir Robert Clive and Sir George Colebrooke cartoon 1773

    Miss Henrietta Colebrooke is mentioned in the recent book Romantic Women Writers Reviewed, Part I  where Ann R Hawkins writes, “A 1788 anecdote of the author in EM [The Edinburgh Magazine] says she is the daughter of Robert Colebrooke, Esq., and the niece of Sir George Colebrooke, the current Baronet. The fact that no published peerages record Henrietta’s birth as part of the Colebrooke lineage however, suggests that she was probably illegitimate. It is likely as a result of her questionable lineage that Rivers (Literary Memoirs) far more vaguely refers to her as “a young lady of the family of Sir George Colebrooke” in 1790.” [1]

    However, the Baronetage of England records that Sir George Colebrooke had a legitimate daughter born in 1762 named Harriet, a common abbreviation for Henrietta. [2] In 1770, when Harriet was aged only eight, her name, alongside those of the entire Colebrooke family, appears on the list of subscribers to Critical Observations on the Art of Dancing by Giovanni-Andrea Gallini. "Sir George Colebrooke. Lady Colebrooke. Mifs Colebrooke. Mifs H. Colebrooke". Dancing was an essential accomplishment for mixing in high society and appearing at court.

    Sir George was MP for Arundel in West Sussex for many years - very close to the Isle of Wight. He was chairman of the East India Company, got in trouble with the Government for dodgy dealings out there and was then mobbed by his creditors. His fortune, once estimated at £300,000, was distributed among them and by 1773 he was bankrupt. A public letter denounced Colebrooke and the Company for "rapacity and cruelty" in Bengal. He died in France in 1807.

Chilham Castle, near Canterbury, Kent.

    Harriet/Harriot/Henrietta also died in France and was buried on the Island of Thanet. In A Tour Through the Isle of Thanet: And Some Other Parts of East Kent, by Zechariah Cozens, we read,  "Description of the church of Chilham, which contains the mausoleum of the family of Robert Colebrooke of Chilham-Castle...The second recess contains the remains of Harriot Colebrooke, second daughter of Sir George Colebrooke, Bart. who died in France, and was here deposited June 28, 1785." [3]

    The book adds that this grave is "without any inscription." How then does Zechariah Cozens know the date? It must have been written down somewhere. I suggest the 5 is a misreading of 8 and Henrietta was alive until 1788. The Rousseau translation says it was published "for the Author". It makes sense that a well-educated woman who was living in France, in poverty, tried to earn her living by publishing this translation by subscription. 

    The picture that emerges is of a young woman born into an extremely wealthy family, that went bankrupt when she was aged ten or eleven. She may have been thrown on the charity of friends and relatives, and she certainly got a good education as by the time she was aged nineteen, in 1781, she was publishing a translation of Diderot's play. The list of subscribers suggests that she was mixing in elevated social circles, where her family must have hoped she would find a husband.

    By 1788 she had not done so, and was living with her father in France. When she published the Rousseau translation, she was aged twenty-six. The far more modest rank of the subscribers indicates that she was no longer mixing in the upper echelons of society. She may have been in poor health, and died soon afterwards. Her family did the only thing they could do to soften this harsh fate, and sent her remains to be buried in the vault of their wealthy ancestors.

    Chilham Castle in Kent is still there, and was until recently owned by gambling tycoon Stuart Wheeler, who on his death last year bequeathed it to an anti-torture charity, and not to his three daughters. [4]

St Mary's Church, Chilham, Kent.

[1]Ann R Hawkins, Romantic Women Writers Reviewed, Part I, Taylor & Francis 2022, p. 290.

[2] Thomas Wotton, ‎Edward Kimber, ‎Richard Johnson, Baronetage of England, London G. Woodfall, 1771, vol.3 p.159. 

[3] Zechariah Cozens, A Tour Through the Isle of Thanet: And Some Other Parts of East Kent, 1793 p. 225.

[4] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9482335/TALK-TOWN-Stuart-Wheeler-leaves-15million-Chilham-Castle-charity.html