Materials Cataloged Separately
1802 | Birth of Harriet Martineau in Norwich, Norfolk, 12 June. |
1805 | Her brother James is born. |
1809 | First reads Milton. |
1813-14 | With her sister Rachel, attends the Reverend Isaac Perry's School, Norwich. Early signs of deafness. |
1818-19 | Spends fifteen months at a school for girls in Bristol run by her aunt, Mrs. Robert Rankin. |
1820 | Ear trumpet needed. |
1822 | Publication of first article in the Unitarian Monthly Repository: Female Writers on Practical Divinity. |
1824 | Death of her eldest brother, Thomas, who had encouraged her writing. |
1825-6 | National economic crisis, damaging the Martineau manufacturing business. |
1826 | Death of Harriet's father, Thomas Martineau. Harriet engaged to her brother James's college friend, John Hugh Worthington, who becomes suddenly ill and then insane. |
1827 | Worthington dies. Harriet discovers political economy, and writes tales such as The Rioters and Principle and Practice. |
1829 | Final collapse of the family business. William Johnson Fox pays her 15 pounds a year for regular contributions to the Monthly Repository. |
1830-1 | Wins all three prizes in an essay competition run by the British and Foreign Unitarian Association to present Unitarianism to Catholics, Jews, and Mohammedans. |
1831 | Visits James in Dublin, and plans her Illustrations of Political Economy. Exhaustive hunt for publishers in London. |
1832 | Publication by Charles Fox of the first of her Illustrations, Life in the Wilds (February). Instant success. Moves to London. Illustrations appear monthly until 1834. Martineau is lionized. |
1833-4 | Poor Laws and Paupers Illustrated (4 parts), commissioned by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. |
1834 | Illustrations of Taxation. |
1834-6 | Departs for America in August 1834 with travelling companion, Louisa Jeffrey. Travels widely; meets key abolitionists. |
1836-9 | Returns to London. Publishes her observations in Society in America and a more personal version of her visit, Retrospect of Western Travel. |
1839 | Publishes a novel, Deerbrook. Visits Europe and falls ill in Italy. Brought home by her brother, James. |
1840-4 | Ill at Tynemouth, suffering from a prolapsed uterus and polypous tumor. Convinced she is about to die, but continues writing: The Hour and the Man (1841), The Playfellow (1841), and Life in the Sick-Room (1844). Mesmerized for the first time on 22 June 1844. |
1845 | Believes she has been cured by mesmerism (hypnotism). Publishes Letters on Mesmerism in the Athenaeum and Dawn Island, an anti-Corn Law tale. Asks friends to destroy her letters. Meets Henry George Atkinson. |
1845-46 | Purchases lot in Ambleside, plans and builds her home, The Knoll. Writes Forest and Game Law Tales. |
1846-7 | Travels to Egypt and the Holy Land with Mr. and Mrs. Richard Vaughan Yates, a Unitarian philanthropist, and Joseph Ewart of Liverpool. |
1848 | Publishes Eastern Life, Present and Past. Death of her mother at age 76. Begins lectures to Ambleside working class, and organizes a building society for them. |
1849 | The History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace and Household Education published. |
1850 | Invited by Dickens to contribute Household Words. Visit from Charlotte Brontë. |
1851 | Publishes Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development, with Henry G. Atkinson. Her agnosticism becomes a public issue. Breaks with her brother James over his hostile review, Mesmeric Atheism, in the Prospective Review. |
1852 | Visit from Mary Ann Evans [George Eliot]. Begins writing articles for the Daily News. |
1853 | Translates and condenses Comte's Positive Philosophy. |
1855 | Publishes her Complete Guide to the English Lakes. Feeling unwell again, goes to London for medical consultation. Convinced this is a different illness from her earlier one, and she has an enlarged heart. Expects imminent death. Writes her Autobiography, but does not publish it. The Factory Controversy: A Warning Against Meddling Legislation. |
1857 | British Rule in India. |
1858 | Contributes articles to the Edinburgh Review (until 1868). Suggestions Towards the Future Government of India. |
1859 | Writes articles for Once A Week (until 1865). |
1861 | Health, Husbandry, and Handicraft. |
1866 | Stops contributing to the Daily News. Signs petition on women's suffrage presented to Parliament. |
1869 | Campaigns against the extension of the Contagious Diseases Act, which was finally amended in 1871. Biographical Sketches. |
1876 | Death of Harriet Martineau in Ambleside, 27 June. |
1877 | Publication of her Autobiography, with Memorials by Maria Weston Chapman. |