Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Poet and song writer. Born in Sibbaldbie, near Lockerbie. Granddaughter of the poet William Gardiner. Her father died when she was nine months old, after which her family moved to Lockerbie. Educated at Glasgow E. C. Training College (1879-1880), and then worked as an early education teacher (“mistress of the Infant Department”) at Glasgow Street Public School, Maxwelltown, Dumfries (1881-1885), and afterwards taught at Dryfesdale Public School, Lockerbie. The Chambers’s Journal ledger entries for her poems refer to her as “Miss Murchie” and give her addresses as Lockerbie (for her poem published on 23 December 1882), 6 Glasgow St, Maxwelltown (for her poem published on 16 May 1885), and School House, Church Square, West Hartlepool (for her poem published on 4 May 1889; NLS Dep 341/369, 370). Married the solicitor Alexander Dobie. Author of Songs and Lyrics (1900), Border Songs and Other Verse (1914). Additional biographical information: Modern Scottish Poets, ninth series, D. H. Edwards, 1886, pp. 265-6; The Poets of Dumfriesshire, ed. by Frank Miller, James Maclehouse and Sons, 1910, pp. 313-14. (AC)