Old Photograph Melville Street Portobello Scotland

Old photograph of a church and houses in Melville Street in Portobello, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Scottish novelist and artist, Lucy Bethia Colquhoun Walford, was born on 17 April 1845 in Portobello. She was the seventh child of John Colquhoun, born 1805, died 1885, of Luss, Dunbartonshire, author of The Moor and the Loch, and Frances Sarah Fuller Maitland, born 1813, died 1877, a poet and hymn writer. Her paternal grandmother, Janet Colquhoun, born 1781, died 1846, was a religious writer, and an aunt, Catherine Sinclair, born 1800, died 1864, was a prolific novelist and children's writer. Lucy Colquhoun was educated privately by German governesses. Her reading included works by Charlotte Yonge and Susan Ferrier, and in later years Jane Austen. The family moved into Edinburgh in 1855, where guests included the artist Noël Paton, who encouraged her to take up painting. In 1868 and several succeeding years she exhibited at the annual exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy. Her first short piece of writing appeared in the Sunday Magazine in May 1869. On 23 June 1869 she married Alfred Saunders Walford, a magistrate of Ilford, Essex, and they moved to London, England. They had two sons and five daughters. The children were said to be " never put aside for her work " and " constantly with their mother. " She died on 11 May 1915 at her home in Pimlico, London.



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