Frances Hodgson Burnett In 1936 a memorial sculpture by Bessie Potter Vonnoh was erected in her honour in Central Park's Conservatory Garden. The statue depicts her two famous "Secret Garden" characters, Mary and Dickon. Frances Eliza Hodgson was born at 141 York Street in Cheetham, Manchester. She was the third of five children of Edwin Hodgson, an ironmonger from Doncaster in Yorkshire, and his wife Eliza Boond, from a well-to-do Manchester family. Hodgson owned a business in Deansgate, selling ironmongery and brass goods. The family lived comfortably, employing a maid and a nurse-maid. Frances had two older brothers and two younger sisters. In
Frances Anne Edgeworth Edgeworthstown in 1813, James Hall, makes reference to her as a "successful" author, with a published novel, "What You Choose to Call it" or "The Good Wife". This attribution was repeated in 1884, but is not mentioned by the family or their papers. It is known that Edgeworth wrote a memoir of Maria Edgeworth, containing selected letters. Some of Edgeworth's letters are held by the National Library of Ireland, and in the Bodleian Library. The Edgeworths went on to have six children together: Frances Maria Edgeworth (1799 – 4 February 1848), Harriet Edgeworth (1801–1889), Sophia Edgeworth (1803–1836), Lucy Jane Edgeworth