Author: Ashby, Edward
Biography:
ASHBY, Edward (1785-1855: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 20 Nov. 1785 at Hackney, London, the son of Charles Ashby and his wife, Ann (Wells?). He was apprenticed to a grocer in nearby Shoreditch in 1800. He married Elizabeth Eyre, daughter of Rev. John Eyre (1754-1803), Vicar of Homerton Chapel, Hackney, and one of the founders of the London Missionary Society, on 26 Apr. 1814 at St. Benet Fink, City of London. A daughter, Elizabeth Eyre Ashby, was born on 24 Dec. 1816 and baptised in the same church on 14 Jan. 1817. A further six children were mostly baptised at the Tabernacle, City Road, London (Wesleyan). By 1851, the family had moved to Brighton where he was listed as a retired wine-merchant and the daughters--Elizabeth, Mary, and Sarah--were running a school with their mother at 23 Gloucester Place. He died on 13 Jul. 1855 at Brighton. His widow and daughters later ran a small boarding-school at 32 Brunswick Street, Hove, close to Brighton. In addition to the lead poem, the volume listed here contains details of his travels in France in 1827, occasional poems to family members (which have made it possible to identify him), religious verse (“The Sabbath Day”), and standard romantic fayre (“Poesy”). He always regarded himself as a poet but was more cautious about his children: “I am a poet, and . . . was a poet born. As soon as I could write, I wooed the Nine. . . . To my children I must raise a better inheritance, . . . inspiring them with caution lest they take up their abode in the ideal regions which Poesy creates” (Annette of Yverdon, 48-49, 52). (ancestry.co.uk 27 Jun. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 27 Jun. 2022; “Eyre, John,” ODNB 27 Jun. 2022; Globe 24 Aug. 1855, 27 Feb. 1877) AA