Jessie Laidlay Weston

Jessie Laidlay Weston (1850–1928) was an independent scholar and folklorist, working mainly on mediaeval Arthurian texts.Weston was the daughter of William Weston a tea merchant and member of the Salters' Company and his second wife, Sarah Burton, and named after his first wife Jessica Laidlay. Sarah, after giving birth to two more daughters died when Jessie was about seven. William remarried Clara King who gave birth to five more children. The elder siblings were born in Surrey, but youngest son Clarence was born in Kent. Jessie, her sister Frances and brother Clarence later moved to Bournemouth, where Jessie began her writing career, remaining there until around 1903. Her home at 65 Lansdowne Road still stands, as of 2010. Jessie studied in Hildesheim then Paris under Gaston Paris. She also studied at the Crystal Palace School of Art.One of her first printed works was a lengthy sentimental verse called The Rose-Tree of Hildesheim. A narrative about "sacrifice and denial", it was modelled on the story of the Thousand-year Rose, which grows on a wall at Hildesheim Cathedral. Published in 1896, it was the title verse in an omnibus of her poems.(from Wikipedia)