Mary Singleton Copley Pelham
(1710-1789)
BIRTH
1710
PLACE
Ireland
DEATH
1789
PLACE
Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States of America
FAMILY
MOTHER
John Singleton Copley
(1738-1815)
HUSBAND
Richard Copley
(1708-1745)
HOMES
RELIGIOUS VIEWS
RELIGION NOT DOCUMENTED
DENOMINATION NOT DOCUMENTED
MEMBERSHIPS
AWARDS
Mary Singleton Copley Pelham (about 1710–1789) was an Irish-born Boston businesswoman and mother of artists John Singleton Copley and Henry Pelham. After Richard Copley’s death, she continued his tobacco business. In 1748 she married artist and schoolmaster Peter Pelham, with whom she advertised lessons in reading, arithmetic, French and other skills. Widowed again in 1751, she kept working through the Revolution and encouraged her sons’ art.
EARLY LIFE
Mary Singleton was born 1710. The external genealogical record identifies John Singleton as a parent. Surviving structured biographical sources provide limited detail about childhood, education, household routines, or the economic circumstances in which this person grew up.
She operated a tobacco retail and wholesale business. She and Peter Pelham advertised instruction in academic subjects, art and manners.
CAREER
DEATH
After Richard Copley’s death, she continued his tobacco business. Widowed again in 1751, she kept working through the Revolution and encouraged her sons’ art. She operated a tobacco retail and wholesale business. She and Peter Pelham advertised instruction in academic subjects, art and manners. Mary Singleton died in 1789, in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States of America. The available biographical account does not describe a continuous final medical course. It gives no dependable sequence of treatment and last symptoms from which to reconstruct a more detailed bedside narrative.
POPULAR BIOGRAPHIES
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