Gatty, Alfred, Mrs., 1809-1873

Margaret Gatty (1809-1873) was the youngest daughter of the Reverend Alexander John Scott (1768-1840), who was private secretary to Nelson and chaplain on HMS Victory . She married Alfred Gatty (1813-1903) in 1839. In 1842 she and her husband published a memoir of her father. She started writing for children in 1851, with The Fairy Godmother, and was the author of Aunt Judy's Tales (1858), one of the most successful mid-Victorian volumes of fiction for children. She also published Parables from Nature, in five series between 1855 and 1870, Aunt Judy's Letters (1862), and Aunt Judy's Magazine (started in 1866, and continued by her daughter Horatia until 1885). She also published a book on British Seaweeds in 1862, as well as Book of Emblems and Book of Sun Dials in 1872.

For the last ten years of her life she suffered increasing paralysis.

Margaret and Alfred Gatty had six sons and four daughters, including Margaret Scott Gatty, (b.1840), whose granddaughter Rachel Smith donated to St Andrews University three albums of seaweed specimens collected by Margaret Gatty;

Juliana Horatia Gatty, (1841-1885), their second daughter, who married Major Alexander Ewing in 1867, and also wrote children's stories;

Horatia Katherine Frances, later Mrs Eden, who took over Aunt Judy's Magazine on the death of her mother, and wrote the biography of her sister Juliana;

Undine Marcia Gatty;

Alfred Scott-Gatty (1847-1918), their third son;

Stephen Herbert Gatty.

Charles Henry Gatty, who donated a large sum of money to the Marine Laboratory at St Andrews University which was subsequently named the Gatty Marine Laboratory, was distantly related to Alfred Gatty. Charles Henry Gatty was the great-grandson of Joseph Gatty and his first wife Joanna Beard, while Alfred Gatty was the grandson of Joseph Gatty and his second wife Jane Hawken.

From the guide to the Correspondence relating to Margaret Gatty, 1858-1913., 1858, 1859, 1864, 1869, 1872, 1913., (University of St Andrews)