Bertha Southey (1809–1877): Fifth child of Robert and Edith Southey. She was educated at Greta Hall by her father and her aunts, Sarah Coleridge and Mary Lovell. Bertha was persistently described by Southey as the shyest of his children and spent a year in 1824–1825 and again in 1830–1831 with John Rickman and his family in order to meet a wider social circle. When her mother became ill in the mid-1830s Bertha shared Edith Southey’s care with her sister, Kate. After her mother’s death, she became engaged in late 1838 to her cousin, Herbert Hill, Junior (1810–1892), second son of Herbert and Catherine Hill. The couple married on 12 March 1839 at Crosthwaite Church, Keswick and had seven surviving children. At the time of their marriage, Herbert Hill, Junior was Curate at Rydal in the Lake District. In the bitter family dispute that marred Southey’s later years, Bertha and her husband opposed Caroline Bowles. Hill became Headmaster of King’s School, Warwick 1843–1876, and Bertha spent most of the rest of her life in the Midlands. She died in Leamington and there is a memorial to her and her husband in St Mary’s Collegiate Church, Warwick.

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