Maria Graham - Early Life

Early Life

She was born near Cockermouth in Cumberland as Maria Dundas, and didn't see much of her father during her childhood and teenage years, as he was one of the many naval officers that the Scottish Dundas clan has raised through the years. George Dundas (1756–1814) (not to be confused with the much more famous naval officer George Heneage Dundas) was made post-captain in 1795 and saw plenty of action as commander of HMS Juno, a Fifth Rate 32-gun frigate, between 1798 and 1802. In 1803 he was given the command of HMS Elephant, a 74 gun third-rate that had been Nelson's flagship during the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, and took her down to Jamaica to patrol the Caribbean waters until 1806.

In 1808 his sea-fighting years were over and he took an appointment as head of the naval works at the British East India Company's dockyard in Bombay. When he went out to India he brought his now 23-year-old daughter along. During the long trip Maria fell in love with a young Scottish naval officer aboard, Thomas Graham, third son to Robert Graham, the last Laird of Fintry. They married in India in 1809. In 1811, the young couple returned to England, where Maria published her first book, Journal of a Residence in India, followed soon afterwards by Letters on India. A few years later her father was appointed Commissioner of the naval dockyard in Cape Town, where he died in 1814, aged 58, having been promoted rear-admiral just two months earlier.