Series WJ/2 - Correspondence with Lady Anna Maria Jones

Lady Anna Maria Jones was born on 5th December, 1748, the second child of Anna Maria Mordaunt and Jonathan Shipley, Dean of Winchester and later bishop of St. Asaph. Her father taught Anna both classical and modern languages. She married William, aged 35, and sailed with him to Calcutta. Alongside her husband, she became interested in botany and also wrote poetry. After much illness she sailed for England in 1793.

In England, she lived in Worting House, near Basingstoke, and in 1806 adopted her sister's children. She edited her husband's works which were published in 1799 by G. G. & J. Robinson as The Works of Sir William Jones. She also gathered together the material for a memoir of Jones written by the family friend, John Shore, Lord Teignmouth. Anna Maria Jones died on 7th July 1829.

Sir Joseph Banks was born on 15th February 1743 in London into a wealthy land-owning family. He was educated at Harrow School and Eton College, where he became interested in botany. Between 1760 and 1763, Banks studied at Christ Church, Oxford, inheriting a considerable fortune after the death of his father in 1761. This wealth funded his travel to collect botanical specimens.

In 1772, Banks became Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society from 1766 and its president from 1778 until his death in 1820. He was created a baronet in 1781 and appointed to the Order of the Bath in 1795. He died on 19th June 1820 in London.

John Shore, Lord Teignmouth was born in St James Street, Piccadilly, on 5th October 1751 but was brought up in Romford. In 1769 he went to work in Bengal where he was one of the first to learn some of the languages. In January 1785 Shore returned to England in the company of Warren Hastings. While in England, on 14th February 1786, he married Charlotte, the only daughter of James Cornish, a medical practitioner at Teignmouth. He returned to India in 1787as a member of the government of Bengal. However he journey back to England in 1790 to be a witness at the trial of Warren Hastings. Shore was appointed Governor-General of India in succession to Cornwallis on 19th September 1792, and was created a baronet, succeeding to the government in 1793 after Cornwallis' departure. He served as Governor-General until 1798.

On his return to England he was created Baron Teignmouth in the peerage of Ireland. He settled in Clapham and became the first President of the British and Foreign Bible Society. He was involved with the Clapham Sect and their anti-slavery campaign. In 1808 he moved to 4 Portman Square where he died on the 14th February, 1834

Teignmouth was a close friend of William Jones and succeeded him as the President of the Asiatic Society after Jones' death. He edited the "Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Correspondence, of Sir William Jones". An 1807 edition is held in the RAS Collections.