Janet Schaw
Janet Schaw was born between 1730 and 1740 in Edinburgh and died in 1800 in Plymouth.
The place and date of Janet's birth is unknown. She was the daughter of Gideon Schaw, the Register of Tobacco in Edinburgh, and Anne Rutherford who were married in edinburgh in 1723.
In 1774 - 1776, she sailed from Burntisland in Fife to St. Kitts and Antigua, in the West Indies, then to North and South Carolina, returning to Edinburgh via Portugal in 1776. She kept a journal of her travels which was discovered in the British Library in 1904 and published as Journal of a Lady of Quality Being the Narrative of a Journey from Scotland to the West Indies, North Carolina and Portugal in the Years 1774 -1776. On her travels she would experience storms at sea, compare the slave-laboured sugar plantations to East Lothian farms and witness the onset of the American Revolution and its effects on her family and friends.
On her journeys she was accompanied by her brother Alexander Schaw, three children, Fanny Rutherford (18) John Rutherford (11) and William (Billie) Rutherford (9).
Janet wrote her will on 14 March 1792[1] describing herself as a spinster. She left all her assets in Scotland and England to her 'dear Brother Alexander Schaw Esquire now of His Majesty's Ordinance at Plymouth Dock.' She may have been worried about her health when she wrote her will as the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette records a Mr and Miss Schaw arriving in Bath in its 29 March 1792 issue.
Janet was buried on 21 December 21 1800 in Eggbuckland, in Plymouth, Devon.[2]
Journal of a Lady of Quality
The Journal records Janet's travels during 1774 - 1776 and records her views and thoughts.
Identifying the Author of a Lady of Quality
The journal was first discovered in 1904 during a search for other material in the British Library where it was catalogued as 'Egerton [ ]". There was no name on it and it was "only after much following of clues and searching in the records of England, Scotland, Ireland, the West Indies na d America [that} the editors [have] been able to trace the careers of those who play the leading parts in the story.'[3] A further two copies of the manuscript have since been found. One, owned by the Antiguan historian, Mr. Vere Langford Oliver, contained a dedication to Alexander Schaw Esquire "the Brother, friend and fellow traveler of the Author, his truly affect. Jen. Schaw, St. Andrew's Square, March 10 1778." The third manuscript had been passed down through the Schaw family, being owned by Colonel Vetch in New Zealand.
Reviews and Academic Comment on Journal of a Lady of Quality
'The journal is eminently readable, at times gripping, with a distinctive narrative voice' and 'is an especially instructive example of the way aesthetics lent itself to knitting together categories of social denomination.'[4]
The journal is clearly 'a private document'[5] and takes the form of a letter. But who it was written for is a point of conjecture. Janet's statement that "At whatever time we meet, I am certain we will meet with unabated regards'[6] has led to conjecture that it sounds as if it was written to someone who was "much more like a lover behind than a friend.'[5]
- ^ The National Archives PROB 11/1355/144
- ^ Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, Devon Burials 1169/1 accessed at www.findmypast
- ^ Schaw, Janet; British Museum. MSS. (Egerton 2423); Andrews, Evangeline Walker; Andrews, Charles McLean (1921). Journal of a lady of quality; being the narrative of a journey from Scotland to the West Indies, North Carolina, and Portugal, in the years 1774 to 1776. New York Public Library. New Haven : Yale University Press. p. 2.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ Bohls, Elizabeth A. (1995). Women Travel Writers and The Language of Aesthetics 1716-1818. Cambridge University Press. pp. 46–65. ISBN 0 521 47458 2.
- ^ a b A History of Scottish Women's Writing edited by Douglas Gifford and Dorothy McMillan. Edinburgh University Press. 1997. pp. 119–124. ISBN 0 7486 0742 0.
- ^ Journal of a Lady of Quality - p130