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Personal data
Name
Isabella Schaw
Date of birth (prefix)
ca.
Born 1740
Alias
Isabella Thomson
Biography

Daughter of Dr David Thomson, a physician at Edinburgh. Married (November 28, 1762, in Edinburgh) to Capt. Frederik Bridges Schaw.1 According to Boswell, she was "[a] woman of a good deal of knowledge, pretty good sense, much vivacity, and a prodigious flow of words".2

Life with Boswell

Boswell had apparently been in love with her at some time in 1762 (probably in Edinburgh). He met her again in London on March 15, 1763, and they had tea together on March 20, 1763. Later on, in Edinburgh in the 1770s, Boswell and the Schaws moved in the same social circles and they met occasionally.