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Violet Jacob was a Scottish writer, now known especially for her historical novel Flemington (1911) and her poetry, mainly in Scots.
She was born Violet Augusta Mary Frederica Kennedy-Erskine, the daughter of William Henry Kennedy-Erskine and Catherine Jones. The area of Montrose where her family seat of Dun was situated was the setting for much of her fiction. In 1894 she married Arthur Otway Jacob, an Irish Major in the British Army, and accompanied him to India where he was serving. Her book Diaries and Letters from India 1895-1900 is about their stay in the Central Indian town of Mhow. The couple had one son, Harry, born in 1895, who died as a soldier at the battle of the Somme in 1916. Arthur died in 1936, and Violet returned to live at Kirriemuir, in Angus.
In her poetry Violet Jacob was associated with Scots revivalists like Marion Angus, Alexander Gray and Lewis Spence in the Scottish Renaissance, which drew its inspiration from early Scots poets such as Robert Henryson and William Dunbar. The Wild Geese, a poem of longing for home, was set to music as Norlan' Wind and popularised by Angus singer and songmaker, Jim Reid.