Charlotte Grove

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Charlotte Grove (1773 – 1860) was first child and eldest daughter of landed gentry Thomas Grove and Charlotte (Pilfold) of Ferne, Wiltshire. Sister to Harriet Grove (who was known as the "first love" of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley) Charlotte kept a diary from 1811 to her death, although some years have not survived.

In 1827, and at the age of 44 she married the new rector of Berwick St. John, Richard Downes. Charlotte's surviving original diaries are held at the Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office, Trowbridge.

Edited diary entries may be found in The Grove Diaries, by Desmond Hawkins (University of Delaware Press / Dovecote Press, 1995). This publication also features the diaries of three other members of the Grove family, including Harriet above (years 1809-1810) and much later, Agnes Geraldine Grove, daughter of Augustus Henry Lane-Fox (Pitt Rivers), and friend of Thomas Hardy.