Mary Jane Godwin

Three years later at Brislington, a nearby village, she gave birth to a daughter she named Clara (in childhood known as Jane and in adulthood as Claire).

To avoid these children bearing the social stigma of illegitimacy, she passed herself off as the widow of Charles Abram Marc Gaulis, "a merchant and member of a prominent Swiss family, whom she met in Cadiz".

Her neighbour at The Polygon, an early housing estate, was the philosopher and writer William Godwin, whose first wife Mary Wollstonecraft had died shortly after childbirth four years previously.

[7] For some years they lived in grace and favour accommodation within the Palace of Westminster,[8] following his award of a sinecure position as Office Keeper and Yeoman Usher of the Receipt of the Exchequer.

[1] Mary Jane Godwin died at home in London on 17 June 1841, and was buried in St. Pancras churchyard beside her husband.

[7] It has since been acknowledged that Mary Jane Godwin occupied a 'singular professional position' as 'the only female publisher of substance in the London literary world of the early 1800s'.

Charles Gaulis Clairmont[11] ended up as Chair of English literature at Vienna University[12] and taught sons of the royal family; news of his sudden death in 1849 distressed Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico.

The little girl died aged five, but later grandchildren were Mary's only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley, and the son and daughter of Charles.