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Frances Rolleston
Frances Rolleston (29 June 1781 - 12 June 1864) was an English writer, scholar, poet, social activist, and artist. She is best known for her book Mazzaroth: The Constellations, Parts I-IV, Including Mizraim: Astronomy of Egypt, published posthumously in 1865. She worked for the cause of anti-slavery, established Infant-schools in various parts of England, and participated in the relief of those suffering from war, famine and sickness.

Early Life
Frances Rolleston was christened at St. Katherine Coleman in Aldgate, London, 13 July 1781. Her father Robert Rolleston, a merchant associated with the successful Sargent group of Mincing Lane, London, engaged in trade in India, Germany and the Levant. He was of the Rolleston family of Watnall, Nottinghamshire, which traced its lineage back to William the Conqueror and included many illustrious people. Frances' mother, Margaret Thornhill Rolleston, was Frances' only teacher up to the age of ten. Frances was precocious, reading Shakespeare's plays with understanding at the age of five. Her siblings were Robert, who died in infancy before Frances' birth, Lucy born 1783, Marianne 1785; Robert 1787 and George 1791. Margaret died in childbirth with George, and so at age ten Frances was sent to live with a cousin of her mother's who was master of the Charterhouse in Kingston-on-Hull, Yorkshire. After three years Frances returned to her father's villa in Camberwell, Surrey. He had meanwhile married Jane Savage, musician and composer, who taught Frances piano, guitar and harp. Frances' other studies included twelve years of Greek, Latin and Italian with Henry and Edward Smedley; French with M. de la Serrie, a French nobleman; poetry, French and English with Rev. W. Collier, professor at Cambridge; Hebrew for seven years of almost daily studies, continuing all her life; astronomy and geology; painting with John Varley and Copley Fielding; and natural sciences, pathology and medicine with Sir Anthony Carlisle.

Social and Charitable Efforts
It was probably from a young age that Frances Rolleston associated with the Clapham Sect, since she was related on her mother's side to the principle figures, William Wilberforce and Henry Thornton. Frances credited Thornton's family with giving her the spiritual insight that led her to take a stand as a Christian. Much of her work coincided with efforts of the Clapham Sect, among them anti-slavery, Sunday Schools, and infant schools. Frances corresponded extensively to raise money and bring public attention to the Irish distress of 1822, and was sewing clothing, giving sacrificially and collecting money for the Irish famine in 1847. In 1824 she began setting up infant schools for poor children. In 1826 she entered ten years of effort to outlaw slavery in England through handwritten letters and person-to-person contact gathering signatures on petitions. She taught in Sunday schools and attached Temperance societies to her infant schools. She nursed people in Keswick through the cholera epidemic of 1849. In 1862, in her 80s, she was giving all she could and recruiting others to help relieve those starving in the Lancashire cotton distress. After her death, a drinking fountain was erected in Keswick "in memory of Frances Rolleston a scholar who helped the people of Keswick."

Infant Schools
Frances began her efforts for infant schools in 1824, the year after Samuel Wilderspin published On the Importance of Educating the Infant Children of the Poor. She began by establishing infant schools near London, and ten years later relocated to Nottinghamshire and established additional schools there and in Yorkshire. She also started two schools in Maltby, Rotherham, where her brother George Rolleston was Rector. While there she tutored her nephew George Rolleston and taught him Hebrew. She later referred to him as "My clever nephew, Professor Rolleston, of Oxford celebrity." Setting up schools entailed finding building sites and persons to underwrite the costs, preparing curricula, and training teachers. It required diplomacy as well as time, for she worked with people from differing religious denominations and political persuasions. Frances' infant schools used the monitorial system developed by Joseph Lancaster and Andrew Bell, however, she did not allow their recommended punishments. Frances followed the reformed education methods of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Frances continued her work with infant schools for twenty-three years until the British government had generally assumed that responsibility.

Mazzaroth
Frances was in her early twenties when the Rosetta Stone was placed in the British Museum, and it is while observing it that the idea occurred to her that there was a relation between the star signs and the Biblical prophecy of Messiah found in Genesis 3:15. Within the following ten years, a large part of it spent in the British Museum Reading Room, she had worked out the meanings of the twelve signs from their names and began researching the astronomical records of ancient nations. She set aside the idea for twenty years and when she picked it up again she also began learning Syriac and Arabic to help her research. Writing Mazzaroth was continually interrupted by other activities. Not until her late sixties did Frances begin earnestly to organize and print her notes. Revising the proofs from the printer was difficult since they were made from detached manuscripts, bits written in 1811, literally half a century old, with repeats and even contradictions to be dealt with. Frances considered this book the major work of her life. During her lifetime many scholarly and religious people showed interest in the project, but Mazzaroth did not receive much attention when it was published after her death.

Other Writing
While working with infant schools, Frances printed several education related works: "Letters on Infant Education" about 1836; "Graduated Reading Lessons" about 1837; "Letters to Infant School Teachers" about 1838, and "On the Pestalozzian System" about 1840. Her earliest piece on reformed education, however, appeared long before her infant schools. In 1806 she wrote and had printed 750 copies of this little book after being battered by a teacher. Frances also wrote tracts and fables for her infant school children.

After her father's death, Frances moved her own house in Camberwell. Her garden adjoined that of William Hone, and an enduring friendship with him and his family ensued. In 1847, five years after Hone's death, Frances published and account of his life, and in 1851 expanded it to "Some Account of the Conversion from Atheism to Christianity of the Late William Hone with further Particulars of his Life and Extracts from his Correspondence."

Frances' love of Hebrew Bible led to several other books: The Book of Canticles according to the English Version, revised and explained from the Original Hebrew in 1853; Notes on the Apocalypse, as explained by the Hebrew Scriptures; the place in Prophecy of America and Australia being pointed out in 1855. The first of these she considered a test to prove her a competent scholar in regards to her great work, Mazzaroth.

Poetry
Frances read poetry from early childhood and read and wrote it all her life. Even her scholarly work Mazzaroth contains many "memorial lines" to star names, planets and related items. She wrote numerous ballads and edited existing ones for the pleasure and instruction of her infant school children. She also wrote hymns; James Montgomery credited her anti-slavery hymn as the best in a collection. Her favorite reading as a child was Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and it was in the style of that poem that she wrote The Pilgrimage of Harmonia: A Legend of Youth, 260 pages in the Spenserian stanza, for which she was credited with marked success.

Lights and Shadows on the Sunny Side of Skiddaw is a poetical guidebook to the Lakes District where she lived the last sixteen years of her life. Her ballads included in Henry Thompson's Original Ballads by Living Authors of 1850 are "St. Patrick's Staff," "Braithwell Cross," "The Three Ravens," "Bessie Bell and Mary Gray," "The Flower of the Prairie," and "The Ferry." Some others were "Robin Hood," "Morte d'Arthur," "Pocahontas," "Filey Bridge," "Starling," and "The Wren's Egg."

Among her sonnets are "All sinless things are happy," "Walla Crag, Derwentwater," "Bassenthwaite Lake, Cumberland," "Madiai," "Attar," "Shadow on Latrigg," and one about Henry de Rolleston, an ancestor of hers who went on the Crusades. She published Metrical Versions of Early Hebrew Poetry in 1863.

Death
Frances Rolleston passed from this life Sunday, June 12, 1864, her remains buried in the churchyard of St. John's in Keswick.