Charlotte Grove

Who was Charlotte Grove?

Charlotte Grove was first child and eldest daughter of Thomas Grove, a landowner of Ferne House, in Wiltshire, England, by his marriage to Charlotte Pilfold.

She was the sister of Harriet Grove, known as the "first love" of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

In 1827, and at the age of 44 she married the new rector of Berwick St John, Richard Downes.

Charlotte kept a diary from 1811 until her death, although some years have not survived. Her surviving original diaries are held at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, in Chippenham, and edited diary entries may be found in The Grove Diaries, which also features the diaries of three other members of the Grove family, including Harriet above and much later, Agnes Geraldine Grove, daughter of Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt Rivers and a friend of Thomas Hardy.