Mary Steele Wakeford

Mary Steele Wakeford (1724-72) (“Amira”) was the daughter of William Steele III and his second wife, Anne Cator Steele; she was half-sister to William Steele IV and Anne Steele. In 1749 she became the second wife of Joseph Wakeford (d. 1785), bearing him four children (one died in infancy, the other at 13). Her poetry stands in marked contrast to the more polished poetry of her sister, often exhibiting a comic, even satiric, bent, laced with a fair amount of self-deprecation. Her two best poems are her witty companion pieces, “To Silvia” and “Silvia’s Rattle,” addressed to her niece, Mary Steele (“Silvia”) (1753-1813), a gifted poet in her own right and the literary heir of Anne Steele. That same year Wakeford's sole publication, “Jesus, and didst thou condescend,” appeared under her nom de plume "Amira" in A Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship (1769), compiled by the Baptist ministers, John Ash of Pershore (brother of her sister-in-law) and Caleb Evans of Bristol (a long-time family friend). Like her mother, Mary Wakeford also kept a diary, but only a few entries copied by one of her descendants remain extant. Her children included William (1753-1819) and Mary (“Polly”) (1760-1824); another son, Samuel (b. 1754), died in 1767. She helped preserve the prose and poetry of her husband’s first wife, Hannah Wakeford (1725-46), as well as portions of the journal of Mrs John Walrond, wife of a nonconformist minister in Exeter and Ottery St Mary. She contributed to some poetic dialogues and competitions with Anne Steele and some of their literary friends, including several dissenting ministers.

Mary Steele Wakeford’s poetic collaborations with Anne Steele, as well as their correspondence, now reside in the Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, Oxford, and have been published in Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, vol 2. Thirteen poems by Wakeford, composed between 1748 and 1769, were copied into a small MS volume titled “Poems on Devotional Subjects” which also belongs to the Steele Collection, where it is joined by five occasional poems on loose sheets of paper. Three riddles by Wakeford can be found in the Reeves Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford. The texts of these poems, along with a complete biographical account of Wakeford, can be found in Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, vol. 4, pp. 117-50.

For selected poems by Wakeford, click here; for her hymns, click here.