Agnes Wheeler

Agnes Wheeler or Ann Coward (bap. 1734 – 1804) was a British writer on the Cumbrian dialect. She is known for one book published in 1790. The Westmorland Dialect, in three familiar Dialogues: in which an Attempt is made to illustrate the provincial Idiom was an early attempt at recording the local dialect.[1] There were four editions of the book. Her work was later used in Specimens of the Westmorland Dialect published by the Revd Thomas Clarke in 1887.[2]

Agnes Wheeler
BornAgnes Cowherd/Coward
bap. 1734
Lancashire
Died1804
Beetham
Pen name"A.W."
NationalityUK
The Westmorland Dialect, in three familiar Dialogues: in which an Attempt is made to illustrate the provincial Idiom.

She was born near Cartmel and went to London for 18 years where she married a Captain Wheeler and worked as a housekeeper. She returned to Cumbria a widow where she wrote for the local press in plain English. She published her one book in dialect which initially had three dialogues but in later editions four. The conversations discuss a trip to London, the death of George III, christenings, deaths, cockfights and other subjects including hairstyles and fashion.[3] The first edition is said to be so rare that the British Library does not have a copy.[2]

Wheeler died in Beetham where she had lived with her brother William in the medieval Arnside Tower. She was buried on 4 November 1804.[2]

  • The Westmorland Dialect, in three familiar Dialogues: in which an Attempt is made to illustrate the provincial Idiom. By A. W. Kendal, 1790: Google
    • The Westmorland Dialect, in four familiar Dialogues: in which an Attempt is made to illustrate the provincial Idiom. By A. Wheeler. 2nd edition, London, 1802: Google Internet Archive
    • The Westmoreland Dialect in four familiar Dialogues, in which an Attempt is made to illustrate the provincial Idiom. By Mrs. Ann Wheeler. To which is added a copious Glossary of Westmoreland and Cumberland Words. A new edition, London, 1840: Google
  • Westmoreland and Cumberland Dialects. Dialogues, Poems, Songs, and Ballads, by various Writers, in the Westmoreland and Cumberland Dialects, now first collected: with a copious Glossary of Words peculiar to those Counties. London, 1839: Google (Google)

References
  1. Ann Wheeler (1790). The Westmorland Dialect, in three familiar Dialogues: in which an Attempt is made to illustrate the provincial Idiom. By A. W. James Ashburner.
  2. Roy Palmer, ‘Wheeler , Agnes (bap. 1734, d. 1804)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 1 June 2017
  3. "The Westmorland Dialogues". www.cwherald.com. Retrieved 1 June 2017.


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