Reeve, Clara

Summary

Father: William Reeve
Mother:

Birth:
Birth Source:

Death: 3 Dec 1803, Ipswich, Suffolk
Death Source: Biography

Spouse1:

Narrative

Clara is named as a sister in the will of Samuel Reeve from 1801.

The following details are provided from a biography written by Sir Walter Scott in Lives of eminent novelists and dramatists:

CLARA REEVE, the ingenious authoress of "The Old English Baron, " was the daughter of the Reverend William Reeve, M. A., Rector of Freston, and of Kerton, in Suffolk, and Perpetual Curate of Saint Nicholas. Her grandfather was the Reverend Thomas Reeve, Rector of Storeham Aspal, and afterwards of St. Mary Stoke, in Ipswich, where the family had been long resident, and enjoyed the rights of free burghers. Miss Reeve’s mother’s maiden name was Smithies, daughter of - Smithies, goldsmith and jeweller to King George I.
In a letter to a friend Miss Reeve speaks thus of her father:-
"My father was an old Whig; from I have learned of all that I know; he was my oracle; he used to make me read the parliamentary debates, while he smoked his pipe after supper. I gaped and yawned over them at the time, but, unawares to myself, they fixed my principles once and for ever. He made me read Rapim's 'History of England;' the information it gave, made amends for its dryness. I read 'Cato's Letters,' by Trenchard and Gordon; I read the Greek and Roman Histories, and ‘Plutarch’s Lives:'- all these at an age when few people of either sex can read their names.”
The Reverend Mr. Reeve, himself one of a family of eight had the same numerous succession; and it is therefore likely, that it
was rather Clara’s strong natural turn for study, than any degree of exclusive care which his partiality bestowed, which enabled her to acquire such a stock of early information. After his death, his widow resided in Colchester with three of their daughters; and it was here that Miss Clara Reeve first became an authoress, by translating from the Latin Barclay’s fine old romance, entitled “ Argenis,” published in 1762, under the title of “ The Phoenix.”
...
Miss Reeve, respected and beloved, led a retired life, admitting no materials for biography, until 3rd December, 1803, when she died at Ipswich, her native city, at the advanced age of seventy-eight years. She was buried in the churchyard of St. Stephen’s, according to her particular direction, near to the grave of her friend, the Reverend Mr. Derby. Her brother, the Rev. Thomas Reeve, and her sister, Mrs Sarah Reeve, both lived to an advanced age. Another brother, bred to the navy, attained the rank of vice-admiral in that service.

Research Notes

Sources

1801 Will - Samuel Reeve - Prerogative Court of Canterbury Piece 1395 (Marriott), folio 89
Scott, Walter, Sir. Lives of eminent novelists and dramatists , p545
Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900 - Reeve, Clara