Woman of words was a true pioneer

August 19, 2004

MARTINEAU LANE

IT was the good Dr Martineau of Bracondale Woods who they named this road after . . . but it was Harriet who put the name on the map.

Gurney Court, in Norwich where Harriet Martineau was born in 1802. She went on to become famous across the world.

A Cinderella who became the nation’s queen of journalism and one of the few women of her time who competed on equal terms with men. A true pioneer.

Harriet was born in Gurney Court on Magdalen Street, Norwich, in 1802. She was the sixth of a family of eight. Her father, Thomas, a Unitarian of Huguenot descent, was a manufacturer.

Harriet was a delicate child, haunted by nightmares and constant terrors. She once wrote:
“I could never cross the yard to the garden without flying and panting, fearing to look behind because a wild beast was after me.”

And she said that her greatest fear was walking at Castle Hill in Norwich.

“Residents were wont to expose their feather beds and beat them with a stick. That sound — a dull shock — used to make my heart stand still.”

She and the rest of her family worshipped at the Octagon Chapel in Norwich.
By the age of 12 Harriet was deaf but she had started writing and was soon getting work published. In 1824 an elder brother died in Madeira and her father died of shock. Money was tight but Harriet continued to write.

It was her work, Illustrations of Political Economy, that made her famous and she left Norwich to become a London celebrity. Top politicians sought her ear and her pen.

She visited America, a 42-day journey by ship, and was threatened with violence during her anti-slavery lectures.

She never stopped writing and when the money started coming in, she gave her poorly mother, drunkard brother, aunt and an orphan a home.

Harriet continued to travel the world — spending time in the Middle East — and between 1853 and 1866 she wrote 1,600 articles for the Daily News and eventually settled on a small farm in Westmorland.

She refused a pension from the Prime Minister Lord Melbourne and later a similar offer from Gladstone. She continued writing until she died in 1876.

t Her brother James, born in 1805, was a philosopher, teacher and eminent Unitarian Divine. He became the Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy and Political Economy at Manchester New College.

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