Frances Anne Edgeworth

Frances "Fanny" Anne Edgeworth (née Beaufort) (1769–1865) was an Irish botanical artist and memoirist. She was the stepmother and confidant of the author Maria Edgeworth.

Early life Frances Anne Beaufort was born at Flower Hill in Navan, County Meath, in 1769. She was one of four children of Daniel Augustus Beaufort and Mary Beaufort (née Waller). Her brother was Admiral Francis Beaufort, and her sisters were the writers Harriet and Louisa. She was educated at Mrs Terson's School at Portarlington, learning writing, drawing, dancing and French. She studied art further under the English artist Bowring, Dublin-based Francis Robert West, and Raymond Deshouilleres of London.

The Edgeworths went on to have six children together: Frances Maria Edgeworth (1799 – 4 February 1848), Harriet Edgeworth (1801–1889), Sophia Edgeworth (1803–1836), Lucy Jane Edgeworth (1805–1897), Francis Beaufort Edgeworth (1809–1846), and Michael Pakenham Edgeworth (24 May 1812 – 1881). Edgeworth died on 10 February 1865 at Edgeworthstown, County Longford.

Artistic work Edgeworth was a contemporary of other botanical women artists of the time, such as Mary Delaney. Her father's biographer, Ellison, describes her as "an exceptionally talented artist in oils and crayons", though Edgeworth also worked in watercolour. She illustrated her father's 1792 A New Map of Ireland.

After her marriage, Edgeworth helped in the illustration of her husband's engineering projects. She produced illustrations for Maria Edgeworth's The Parent's Assistant, which were used in the third edition. It was the production of these drawings that led to Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Frances meeting and subsequently marrying. The private collection at Edgeworthstown House holds an album containing some of these drawings. The Huntington Library in California has a volume of her botanical watercolours of plants from her home and around Ireland, dating from 1798 to 1807. These botanical paintings are of well-known plants from her home and surroundings and consist of 101 drawings. The drawings are very detailed and show a keen interest in botany. Edgeworth includes the Linnaean names, with her primary interest being in a complex group of plants, the Cryptogams.