ABSTRACT
The Winkworth sisters, Susanna (1820-84) and Catherine (1827-78) were translators, whose careers were significantly assisted by their friendship with Elizabeth Gaskell. Born in London to Henry Winkworth, a silk merchant, and his wife, Susanna Dickenson, they moved with their large family of brothers and sisters to Manchester in 1829, where they were taught by the Revd James Martineau and William Gaskell. Following their mother’s death in 1841 and their father’s remarriage in 1845, Catherine spent a year in Dresden, living with a Winkworth aunt, and teaching her cousins. Both sisters were keenly interested in German culture, and when Susanna expressed a wish to translate the life of the German historian, Barthold George Niebuhr, Elizabeth Gaskell introduced her to the Prussian ambassador, ‘Chevalier’ Bunsen, whose secretarial assistant she became for a year in Bonn (1850-1).
