Dorothy Dury

Dorothy Durie or Dorothy Dury (1613–1664), born Dorothy King, first married name Dorothy Moore (c.1618–1645), was an Anglo-Irish writer on education. She had a talent for language and she was interested in the education of women, alchemy and in medicines.

Dorothy Durie
BornDorothy King
1613
Dublin
Died1664
London
Occupationwriter
NationalityIrish
Subjecteducation

Life

Durie was born in Dublin in about 1613.[1] Her father was Sir John King and her mother was Catherine Drury. She had eight siblings. Her English father was based in Dublin but he had been granted lands by the Crown in Ireland under dubious circumstances.[2] Durie was interested in education although she considered her own to be frivolous. Despite this she could read both Latin and Greek and she was fluent in French. When she visited France it was said that she the first educated woman there since Lady Jane Grey.[1]

Around 1618 she married John Moore was owned 1000 acres in Ireland and he was known to enjoy his drink. He died on 9 April 1635 and Durie moved to London where she stayed with Katherine and Gerard Boate.[1] She had some lands in Ireland but these seem to be lost and she would eventually sell land in Ireland to Katherine Boate.

In August 1642 she moved to the Netherlands in order that she could renew her friendship with Calvinist divine John Dury (who was a friend of John Milton). She had consulted him about the education of her sons, and she and Dury began a correspondence. In March 1942 he had taken up a job in The Hague as the child Princess Mary Stuart's chaplain. Dorothy followed him as he toured the Netherlands. She had to scotch rumours of a secret marriage between them,[1] although one source says she was the Princess's governess.[3]

She married John Dury[4] in 1645 and they returned to England. Their daughter, Dora Katherina Dury (1654–77),[1] later became the second wife of Henry Oldenburg, also a younger member of the same Hartlib Circle in which John himself was so prominent, and the first secretary of the Royal Society.[5]

She exchanged letters with the theologian André Rivet concerning the role of women in religion and she corresponded with Lady Ranelagh, with whom she discussed both the education of girls and love in marriage.[1]

They both took an interest in alchemy[6] and later she dabbled in pharmacy, either because she was short of money or out of interest in selling medicines.[1]

Durie died in London in 1664 while her husband was abroad.[1]

References
  1. "Durie [née King], Dorothy (c. 1613–1664), writer on education | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/55437. Retrieved 2020-03-18. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. Goodwin, Gordon (2004). "King, Sir John (d. 1637), politician and landowner | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". In Clavin, Terry (ed.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15569. Retrieved 2020-03-18. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. Dijk, Suzanna van (2004). I Have Heard about You: Foreign Women's Writing Crossing the Dutch Border : from Sappho to Selma Lagerlöf. Uitgeverij Verloren. ISBN 978-90-6550-752-5.
  4. Campbell, Gordon; Corns, Thomas N. (2008-10-23). John Milton: Life, Work, and Thought. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-162298-4.
  5. If the dates of birth and death of Dora's short life (23 years) are correct, John Dury married his daughter to Henry Oldenburg probably after Dorothy herself was already dead, at a quite young age. Dora would have been only 10 years old when her mother died. If John went ahead with the marriage plans when Dora was 14 or 15 years old, probably the youngest age at which a young woman could get married at the time, then the wedding would have occurred around 1667 at the earliest. If so, Henry Oldenburg would have been around 48 years old, and John Dury would have been around 71 years old at the time of the wedding. Both Henry and Dora died only 10 years later, in 1677.
  6. William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe (2002), Alchemy Tried in the Fire, p. 244.
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