(?1690–1762) Poet, born near Midhurst, Sussex; taught to read by her parents. She earned a living by ‘Washing, Brewing and such labour’. Her poem The Woman's Labour: An Epistle to Mr. Stephen Duck (1739) robustly defended the industry of rural women like herself against Duck's aspersions in The Thresher's Labour (1730). Collier's Poems on Several Occasions (1762), which included an elegy on Duck and a poem on the marriage of George III, was published at Winchester with strong support from local subscribers; it was prefaced by ‘Remarks of the Author's life, drawn by herself’.
From The Oxford Companion to English Literature in Oxford Reference.