The Father & Daugther

Amelia Alderson, an only child, was born on the 12th November 1769 in Norwich, England.

After the death of her mother on New Year’s Eve 1784 she became her father's housekeeper and hostess.

The young Amelia was energetic, attractive, and an admirer of fashion. She spent much of her youth writing poetry and plays and putting on local amateur theatricals. At 18 she had published anonymously ‘The Dangers of Coquetry’.

Amelia married in the spring of 1798 to the artist John Opie at the Church of S...