This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Frances Clarke. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Born: 1849, United Kingdom
Died: 10 August 1930
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Maria Henrietta de la Cherois Crommelin
Crommelin, Maria Henrietta (‘May’) de la Cherois (1849–1930), author and traveller, was born at Carrowdore Castle, Co. Down, second daughter of Samuel de la Cherois Crommelin, JP, DL, and high sheriff of Co. Down, and Anna Maria de la Cherois Crommelin (née Thompson), of Co. Tyrone. The family were descendants of Louis Crommelin, a huguenot refugee and early pioneer of the linen trade in Ulster. Educated at home by a series of continental governesses, she began her literary career at the age of 16 when, with her elder sister Lucy, she began contributing anonymously to newspapers. Despite her father’s disapproval, she went on to have her first novel, Queenie, published in 1874. She received little support at home, but was encouraged by another local writer, Lord Dufferin. During the land war the family left Ireland and moved to Devonshire, where Lucy died in August 1881. Crommelin later settled in Kensington, west London, and lived there independently.
In the years that followed she produced over thirty novels and volumes of short stories, among them Orange Lily (1879), Black Abbey (1880), Divil-may-care (1899), and The golden bow (1899), some of which focus on interdenominational relationships in Ulster. After visits to distant relatives in Holland, she produced several pieces with Dutch subject-matter, among them A visit to a Dutch country house, which appeared in translation in several Dutch papers. She was a talented linguist; her travels (throughout North and South America, the West Indies, Syria, Palestine, and Japan) colour much of her fiction, including Halfway round the world for a husband (1896) and I little knew – ! (1908) and resulted in travel books such as Over the Andes from Chile to Peru (1896). She was one of the earliest female members of the Royal Geographic Society.
During the first world war she worked in three London hospitals and assisted Belgian refugees. In 1927, to mark the 200th anniversary of Louis Crommelin’s death, she donated his only surviving portrait to the Ulster Museum. She survived her three brothers, and with her remaining two sisters inherited the family estate in 1902. Though they sold the family furniture and subsequently let the property, she maintained her contact with Ireland through periodic visits to relatives in Donaghadee, Co. Down. Her applications to the Royal Literary Fund (1891, 1909) make reference to her being swindled out of money. She died unmarried 10 August 1930, probably in London.