Frances Greville c.1724–1789
Frances Greville was born in Longford, Ireland in 1724, one of four daughters of James Macartney, the Member of Parliament for Longford. By the 1740s she was living in London and was a close friend of Sarah Lennox, the Duchess of Richmond, both being celebrated in Horace Walpole’s poem, The Beauties.
In 1748 she married Fulke Greville after an elopement and went on to have seven children. Greville served as the Member of Parliament for Monmouth, High Sheriff of Wiltshire and envoy to the Elector of Bavaria. In this latter role he and Frances spent much of the 1760s and 1770s travelling abroad. Frances had been one of the most prominent women at the court of George II and George III and Richard Brinsley Sheridan dedicated his play The Critic to her.
She is only known for one poem, A Prayer for Indifference, which was published in the Edinburgh Chronicle in 1759 and was an attack on the cult of sensibility. She died in London in 1789.
Works include
None available