Poet and translator, writing in Scots and English. Born in Leith and lived in Edinburgh,
spending summers at North Berwick with her family. Educated at Miss Du Plessis’s School,
Royal Terrace, Edinburgh. Disabled from childhood due to a spinal disease. Spoke French,
Italian, and German. Author of *Mara: A Girl’s Story, and Other Poems* (1879). The
*Chambers’s Journal* ledger entry, for her poem published on 1 April 1876, gives her
name as “Miss Ford” and gives no address (NLS Dep 341/368). She was described as “the
late Miss Ford” in the ledger entry for her translation, published on 8 February 1879.
Biographical information: Reilly, *Mid-Victorian Poetry*, p. 168; David Herschell
Edwards, *Modern Scottish Poets*, eighth series, D. H. Edwards, 1885, pp. 131-3. (AC)