Carlyle, Jane (Baillie) Welsh, n�e Welsh 1801-66
Scottish diarist, the wife of Thomas Carlyle

She was born in Haddington, East Lothian, and tutored by the revivalist minister Edward Irving, who introduced her in 1821 to his friend Thomas Carlyle, whom she married in 1826. They lived on her estate at Craigenputtock, Dumfriesshire, from 1828 to 1834, and then in Chelsea. She declined to become a writer despite Carlyle's promptings, and spent much of her life supporting her husband through his depressions and chronic ill health. She is, nevertheless, remembered for her vividly written letters and diaries, edited by Carlyle, which were eventually published after his death in 1883, and which show her to have been one of the best letter-writers in the English language.