Bithia Mary Croker

Bithia Mary Croker was born in Warrenpoint, County Down, Ireland on 28 May 1847, the only daughter of Rev. William Sheppard, an ex-barrister who became rector of Kilgefin in County Roscommon. She spent parts of her childhood in Roscommon before being educated in Cheshire and France, where she became famous as a horsewoman with the Kildare Hunt. In 1871 she married John Stokes Croker, an officer in the Royal Scots Fusiliers, and followed him to India, where she lived for fourteen years and began writing novels as a distraction during the hot season.