Mary Hay

Mary Cecil Hay (10 January 1839 – 24 July 1886) was an English novelist, short story writer, and poet. Her work was often serialised and appeared in periodicals and weeklies in the UK, America and Australia.

Background and early influences Mary Hay was born in Shrewsbury to clockmaker Thomas William Hay (1791–1856) and Cecilia Carbin (1798–1888). There were seven children in the family, four boys and three girls, all baptised in a non-conformist independent church. The eldest boy, John (1821-1821) died in infancy. The next oldest son, Arthur Kenneth (1824–1839), committed suicide at the age of fifteen. The middle son, Walter Cecil Hay FRAM (1828–1905), became an organist and music teacher, whilst the youngest son, Thomas William (1836–1873), followed his father into the clock-making business. Mary and her two sisters, Francis Ann (1830–1884) and Susan Elizabeth, an artist (1840–1908) remained unmarried and continued to live at home with their mother. Mary's father died in 1856 aged sixty-five and her mother took control of the business, despite financial difficulties, passing it to her son Thomas in 1872. He became the third generation of clock-makers in the family. After this date Mary, her two sisters and her mother moved to Chiswick and later took a house in West Sussex.

One of Hay's novels, For Her Dear Sake, is part set near the Lizard in Cornwall, a short distance from the Grade and Ruan parishes where she was staying with the family of Rev. Frederick Christian Jackson. Jackson was a competent amateur artist and sold pictures to fund his church, and in 1880 he managed to persuade Madame Modjeska to put on a staging of Romeo and Juliet in the vicarage gardens to raise funds for the church organ.

Although Hay lived at home with her mother and two sisters, she would have come into contact with people involved in the arts and music through her brother, Walter Cecil Hay, and his family. Walter was a concert master, a composer, the Diocesan Inspector of Choirs for the Rural Deanery of Shrewsbury, organist at St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury and a music tutor. One of his best known pupils was composer Edward German. In 1855 Walter married Emily Henshaw (1828-1903), whose father, Thomas Northage Henshaw (1799-1871) was the teacher of Writing and Accidence at Shrewsbury School from 1847 to 1870. Emily was a good amateur artist and painted several studies of the old buildings in Shrewsbury, many of which can be seen on the Darwin Country museum and library web site. Emily and Walter's granddaughter was artist Margaret Dovaston RA. Mary Cecil Hay's knowledge of the arts was reflected in reviews that she wrote for the Royal Academy Exhibition and the Grosvenor Gallery in 1880.

One memory of a particular event in Mary Hay's youth must have stayed with her for many years. In 1857 when she was 17 her brother, Walter, organised a summer fete in Shrewsbury that included music from Monsieur Jullien. The event was in a location referred to as the Isle of Poplars, and access to it was via a temporary pontoon bridge constructed across the River Seven for the event. In the evening, as the visitors started to return home across the bridge, it gave way and ten people, including women and children, were drowned. At the inquest the mayor of Shrewsbury told the jury that he had given Walter Hay permission for the pontoon, only on condition that the construction was placed in the hands of a suitably qualified person. Hay was exonerated by the jury because it was deemed that he had given the contract for the construction of the bridge to such a person. However, the weight of people using the thoroughfare had been underestimated by the contractor and crowd control had been inadequate.

In addition to the suicide of her oldest brother in 1839, Mary's youngest brother, Thomas William, had setbacks in his life and died at the early age of 37 in Boston, America. He had also been declared bankrupt in England in 1867, possibly due to the problems with his mother's clock/watch making business. One of the trustees in these proceedings had the unusual middle name of Bickerton and Mary Hay named one of her villains, Bickerton Slimp, in her novel Old Myddelton's Money.

Career

Hay's novels usually had a common structure. They were often set in Cornwall where Hay used to visit, but they also had locations near Birmingham and Liverpool. The story is usually set at an upper class residence and also includes urban locations. The lower class heroine finally gets to marry the higher class and elder hero, but there are usually some legal problem over maybe a will and another secondary character comes to an early and unusual death.

Hay's writings were initially published as serials in magazines like the Family Herald, at first under the pseudonyms of Mark Hardcastle, Markham Howard or Sidney Howard. For a period she used the name M. Cecil Hay, shortening her middle name which was actually Cecilia. Many of her works were published as collections of short stories or as a three volume novel. Novels like The Squires Legacy were published in 60 different issues of the Family Herald in 1875 and this was followed by a three volume novel the same year. The following year the novel was published in one volume, but by another different publisher.

Hay died in a house called Bay Trees, East Preston, West Sussex on 24 July 1886 after a fifteen-year career followed by a long illness. According to probate records her personal estate was worth £272; her sister Susan Elizabeth was named as executor. She was buried on the eastern side of Highgate Cemetery. Her sister, Francis, had died two years previously, in East Preston on 3 July 1884, aged 50. Their mother died in 1888 and the surviving sister, Susan Elizabeth, died in 1908, leaving her estate to be administered by her niece, Amy Isabel Dovaston, mother of painter Margaret Dovaston.

Works Kate's Engagement 1873 Hidden Perils 3 vols. 1873 (1 vol. 1875). Old Myddelton's Money 3 vols., 1874 (1 vol. 1875). Victor and Vanquished 3 vols. 1874 (1 vol. 1875), (appeared originally as Rendered a Recompense.) The Squire's Legacy 3 vols. 1875 (1 vol. 1876) A widely published obituary of Hay said of her:

A Dark Inheritance A Father's Story A Few Days A Little Aversion A Midnight Meeting A Name Cut in the Gate A Shadow on the Threshold A Sisters Story A Wicked Girl After the Lessons All Through Arethusa Alphonzo's Ghost Among the Ruins The Arundel Motto At Last At the Seaside Atholl Back to the Old Home Bart Bannatyne’s City Home Bertha's Christmas Box Bid Me Discourse Brenda Yorke By a Leap By and By By The Night Express

CO. Dolf s Big Brother Dorothy's Venture For Her Dear Sake Guy Newton's Revenge Hamilton Brothers He Stoops to Conquer The Heir of Rosscairne Hidden Perils Hope Deferred How a fairy tale ended How I Wrote a Novel In the Christmas Firelight In the Holidays Into the Shade, and other stories Kate's Engagement Kenneth Lady Carmichael's Will Larry’s Hut Leoline Lester's Secret Lettice Vere's Last Christmas-Day

Locked In London Pride Lost Harmony Mid Pleasures Missing Mrs Duncan's Eccentricity My First Offer My only Novel Nettie Dunkayne Nora's Love Test Notes from a German Band Old Myddelton's Money On a Monument On the Line One Summer Month One Terrible Christmas Eve One Winter Night Page Ninety-Two Pennie's Choice Ploughed by Moments Reaping the Whirlwind Ricardo’s Benefit Sir Rupert's Room Stop Thief!

The Arrandel Motto The Blackbird's Nest The End if a Fairy Tale The Housekeeper's Story By The Night Express The Old Bell Ringer (poem) The Sorrow of a Secret Story The Squire's Legacy Through the Breakers Through the Wind and Rain Told in New England Told in a Picture Gallery Two Hallow Eves Under the Will Under Life's Key Upon the Waters Victor and Vanquished We Four Well Done! What our Advertisement Brought