Susanna Roope Dockery
Susanna Roope Dockery (1856-1927) was an English watercolour painter who lived both in England and in the city of Porto in Portugal. She mainly painted scenes of rural life in Portugal. Background Susanna Roope Dockery was born in Porto, the daughter of Cabel Roope, whose family came from Dartmouth in England and Elizabeth Whitaker. He was a partner in Hunt, Roope, Teage and Co., of Porto (or “Oporto” as it was then widely known by the English), which was an important company that both imported salted codfish from Newfoundland and exported wines to the United Kingdom and elsewhere. While marriage between the English families of Porto was common, Roope chose to marry Alfred Victor Dockery, the United States Consul in Porto between 1873 and 1876. He was transferred to Leeds, England, where the couple lived after their marriage in 1878. They had three children. Dockery, who was born in 1851 in North Carolina, came from a prominent family of politicians and plantation owners. He owed his diplomatic career after the American Civil War to the family's support of the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, but when the Democrats took over the presidency in 1885 he was forced to