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 Hodgson Burnett the distraction of charity work and formed the Drury Lane Boys' Club, hosting an opening in February 1892. Also during this period she wrote a play with a starring role for Stephen Townsend in an attempt to begin his acting career. After a two-year absence from her Washington, D.C. home, her husband, and her younger son, Burnett returned there in March 1892, where she continued charity work and began writing again. In 1893, Burnett published an autobiography, devoted to her eldest son, titled "The One I Knew Best of All". Also in that year, she had a set of her