A family life alongside sustained literary work
Born Constance Mary Fearon, Pott grew up with an interest in Bacon that, according to the tribute published after her death, began in childhood. She married Henry Pott and became the mother of nine children. One of their children, also named Constance Mary Pott, became a printmaker and teacher.
Pott edited Bacon’s Promus of Formularies and Elegancies in 1883, with a foreword by Edwin Abbott. She compared the notebook’s expressions with Shakespeare’s writing and became a central organiser of the Bacon Society. Her husband served as treasurer and her brother Francis Fearon as secretary during its beginnings. Correspondence, research and writing continued alongside family responsibilities. She died in 1915, leaving books and papers now represented in the collections of Senate House Library.
Searching books for a hidden connection
Francis Bacon and His Secret Society appeared in 1891. Pott linked her account of Bacon’s literary ambitions to Rosicrucian and Masonic traditions, then devoted substantial attention to the marks found in early paper. She treated scattered details as possible parts of a common design. The claim that Bacon stood behind works attributed to other writers belongs to her argument, rather than to an established account of their authorship.
Her introduction invites further investigation and says conclusions should be withdrawn if stronger contrary evidence appears. Her surviving papers show how extensive that investigation became: Senate House lists files on ciphers, printing, Shakespearean plays, natural history and correspondents. The archive preserves the notes, comparisons and correspondence through which she pursued that theory over many years.
