Winifred Marshall Gales
Winifred Marshall Gales was an English-born author and the youngest daughter of John and Elizabeth Weston Marshall. Born in Newark, England, she was educated in the classics and contemporary political thought, which influenced her later works. In 1784, she married Joseph Gales, a politically liberal printer who supported various reforms, including the abolition of the slave trade. Gales published her first novel, *The History of Lady Emma Melcombe and Her Family*, in 1787 under the pseudonym "A Female," highlighting themes of virtue and social status through the story of two orphaned children who reclaim their aristocratic heritage.
Following political turmoil surrounding her husband’s views on the French Revolution, the family relocated to Germany and ultimately immigrated to the United States, settling in Philadelphia and later Raleigh, North Carolina. In 1804, Gales published her notable work, *Matilda Berkely: Or, Family Anecdotes*, which also emphasized middle-class virtues and morality. Throughout her life, she continued to write, producing poetry and a family memoir. Her literary contributions reflect a keen awareness of the social issues of her time, particularly regarding gender and class dynamics.
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Subject Terms
Winifred Marshall Gales
Writer
- Born: July 10, 1761
- Birthplace: Newark, England
- Died: June 26, 1839
- Place of death: Washington, D.C.
Biography
Winifred Marshall Gales, the youngest daughter of John and Elizabeth Weston Marshall, was born in Newark, England. She later reported that her family was distantly related to the English aristocracy. Her father had her educated in the classics and in contemporary political thought. On May 4, 1784, she married Joseph Gales, a printer’s apprentice and the son of a village schoolmaster. In 1785 their first child was born but lived only a few hours; during the next five years, four more children were born. The couple settled in Sheffield, where Joseph Gales opened a bookstore and began to publish the Sheffield Register in 1787. Gales’s husband was a political liberal who supported parliamentary and labor reform, religious freedom, and abolition of the slave trade, and even though Gales’s parents had been Tories, she came to share his political views. In 1787 she published The History of Lady Emma Melcombe and Her Family. Gales sold the copyright to a London publisher for twenty-five guineas and revealed only her gender, publishing the novel under the pseudonym, “A Female.” This three-volume novel focuses on the story of two orphaned children, Edward and Emma, who are born into poverty but turn out to be wealthy and aristocratic. The first volume describes Emma Melcombe, a privileged woman who dies in obscurity after her marriage is discredited and her children declared illegitimate. She leaves this narrative to her children as an account of her suffering and as a revelation of their rightful inheritance. In the next two volumes, presented in epistolary form, Edward and Emma discover and regain their titles. The novel illustrates the dangers to women of unrestrained passions and preaches that birth and rank should be accompanied by virtuous behavior. Edward and Emma are so virtuous that they deserve their good fortune.
In 1793 Joseph Gales was forced to flee to Germany because he had expressed sympathy for the French Revolution and published the work of Thomas Paine. In 1794 Winifred Gales sold the business, and she and her four children followed her husband to Germany. They decided to immigrate to the United States, settling first in Philadelphia and then in Raleigh, North Carolina. Gales gave birth to two daughters in Philadelphia and to daughter and son in North Carolina. In 1804 Gales published Matilda Berkely: Or, Family Anecdotes, her best-known work. This novel also illustrates the value of middle-class domestic virtues. Matilda and her traveling companion Eliza Berville are both orphans, but Matilda seems to be of higher social status. She survives the temptations of London society and is rewarded with marriage to the worthy Charles Egerton, who gives up his aristocratic fiancée, Lady Blanche, for Matilda. Eliza is kidnapped and hidden in a Russian monastery for years; after her release she decides to enjoy “blessed singleness” and is revealed to be Matilda’s cousin, and her good behavior is validated by this revelation of genteel lineage. In 1833 Gales and her husband left Raleigh for Washington, D.C. Gales wrote occasional poems and left a memoir as a family history for her children.