Catherine Upton was a British governess and the author of The Siege of Gibraltar (1781) and Miscellaneous Pieces (1784). The wife of a lieutenant of the Manchester Regiment, she lived with her husband and children in Gibraltar during the Great Siege of Gibraltar. Her first book is an epistolary narrative of her experiences taking care of herself and her children throughout the conflict. Miscellaneous Pieces (1784) is a collection of poetry and prose, including two poems about the Siege, didactic dialogues for children, and brief discussions of methods for teaching writing, music, etc. The publication of Miscellaneous Pieces suggests that she was widowed, as Upton identifies herself as a governess of a “Ladies’ Academy” in London and declares in the introduction to the book that she wrote it as a means of supporting her children. Very little is known about her; indeed, her two volumes of published work constitute nearly the entire record of her life.
