The Quaker, Mary Leadbeater, was a prolific chronicler of late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century life in rural Ireland. Her literary career spanned thirty-four years (1790-1824) during which time she produced a formidable body of work — didactic tales, sketches and dialogues, secular and religious poetry, and biography — as well as maintaining an extensive correspondence with her Irish and English contemporaries.
Born Mary Shackleton in December 1758, she was the second child of Richard Shackleton (1726-1792) and his second wife, Elizabeth Carleton (1726-1766), prominent members of the Quaker community of Ballitore, Co. Kildare. Mary’s grandfather, Abraham Shackleton, founded the school in Ballitore where illustrious figures such as Edmund Burke and Napper Tandy (a United
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Citation: Buchanan, Averill. "Mary Leadbeater". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 March 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11783, accessed 26 November 2024.]
