October 6, 1860

Rose Ball (October 6, 1860 to 1911) was how she was first known. This fin-de-siecle poet came from a family of iron mongers, bankers and accountants. Her father and brother also had artistic aspirations. George Armytage, a Cambridge educated Australian, married her (1879), and they had two children. It was probably after she separated from her husband that she met (1886) and eventually was able to marry, Arthur Tomson, a painter. They made a gilded couple; he had pictures displayed at the Royal Academy and her poems were published in periodicals. Besides the criticism and editing such a life assumes, they started their own periodical in 1890, Art Weekly. Rose published her writing under the name Graham R. Tomson, or typically just "Graham R." Then, in 1894 Rose eloped with H. B. Marriott Watson; they went to Cornwall. As Rosamund Marriott Watson, our poet remained with this last true love. With the scandal of a second elopement and changing literary fashion, Rosamund lost much of her commercial market, and had a nervous breakdown in 1903. She in fact had a short life. And there was then no Margaret Mead to say, "Three marriages, that's about right," for a person's lifetime.


Much of the information above came from a book review in Victorian Periodicals Review, of
Graham R.: Rosamund Marriott Watson, Woman of Letters. This biography written by Linda K. Hughes was published in 2005.

A source contemporary with the poet, Richard Le Gallienne, referenced in an article (collected by Alfred Henry Miles in Robert Bridges and contemporary poets ((1891)),
"her enthusiasm for cats and first editions."


Here are the titles of her books, including some compiled from her published essays:

Tares: a Book of Verses (1884)
The Bird-Bride: a Volume of Ballads and Sonnets (1889)
A Summer Night and Other Poems (1891)
Vespertilia and Other Verses (1895)
The Art of the House (1897)
Old Books, Fresh Flowers (1899)
An Island Rose (1900)
The Patchwork Quilt (1900)
After Sunset (1903)
The Heart of a Garden (1906)
The Lamp and the Lute (1912)

Her last partner edited and introduced a book of her collected verse,  published in 1912: Poems of Rosamund Marriott Watson.