Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Makin, Bathsua
MAKIN, BATHSUA (fl. 1673), learned lady, was daughter of John Pell, rector of Southwark, Sussex, and sister of John Pell (1610–1685) [q. v.] the eminent mathematician (Evelyn, Numismata, p. 265). She became the most learned Englishwoman of her time, and was appointed tutoress to Charles I's daughters, more especially to the Princess Elizabeth, whom she instructed in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, Italian, Spanish, and mathematics. She maintained a literary correspondance with Anna Maria van Schurman; in the latter's 'Opuscula' (edit. 1749, pp. 126-7) are two Greek letters addressed to her by Mrs. Makin. Among the Additional (Birch) MSS. in the British Museum (No. 4279, f. 103) there is an undated letter from Mrs. Makin to her brother, requesting him to send her a 'few lines of the position of the late comet' and his own observation of the phenomenon. In 1649 she probably keeping the 'schools, or colleges, of the young gentlewomen' at Putney, which Evelyn (Diary, 1850-2, i. 250) visited, 'with divers ladies,' on 17 April of that year. She asked the council of state for payment of the arrears of 40l. a year granted her for life for her attendance on Charles I's children, but her petition was dismissed on 16 Aug, 16S5 (Cat. State Papers, Dom. 1655, p. 290). Her ideas of female education are developed in a curious essay on the subject, published in 1673, when she kept a school at Tottenham High Cross. There is a very rare portrait of her by Marshall, engraved when she was resident at Tottenham.
[Granger's Biog. Hist. 2nd edit. ii. 392; Ballard's Memoirs, Preface, p. vii; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits. i. 219; Jesse's House of Stuart, ii. 250; Mrs. Green's Princesses of England, vi. 346.]