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Sheila researched the life of this eighteenth-century author, and found that Catherine’s published memoirs were the main source of information about her.
Catherine was baptised at Exeter in 1714, the eldest daughter of John Yeo [note 1] and Emblin Field and a great granddaughter of the Reverend William Yeo of Wolborough. John and Emblin had daughters Susanna Yeo (baptised 1717) and Emblin Yeo (baptised 1719) after they moved to Plymouth in furtherance of John’s career in the Royal Navy – he reached the rank of Admiral.
Catherine’s mother Emblin Yeo died when she was five; her father re-married and Catherine was sent to boarding school. Despite her father’s apparent disapproval, she married silk merchant Samuel Jemmat in Devonport in 1735.
Catherine began seeking subscribers to her Memoirs in 1760 and was able to self-publish them in 1762 [note 2]. Her Memoirs seem to have proved popular – there was a second edition in 1765 [note 3] and a third in 1771 after her death. Her other works The Rural Lass and Question on the Art of Writing also appeared in print.
Catherine died in London in 1766 – her burial record from the parish church of St Martin-in-the-Fields refers to her death at Charing Cross.
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Notes
1. 1681–1756, son of William Yeo and Susanna Youlden. See Descendants of William Yeo and Agnes Savery.
2. Caroline Breashears, Eighteenth-Century Women’s Writing and the ‘Scandalous Memoir’, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2016.
3. Catherine Jemmat, The Memoirs of Mrs. Catherine Jemmat, Daughter of the late Admiral Yeo of Plymouth: written by herself, two volumes, printed for the author, second edition, London, 1765.