Author: Bachelor, Thomas
Biography:
BACHELOR, Thomas (1775-1838: ODNB)
His surname is sometimes given as Batchelor, including in the ODNB. Born on 25 Sept. 1775 at Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, he was the fifth child of Ann (Brandon) and Joseph Bachelor, farmers. He was baptised in 1785 at Ampthill where he attended school (1785-88). In 1792 the family moved to Boughton End where they were tenant farmers on the Duke of Bedford’s estate. Bachelor had begun reading verse after he left school and by the time he was farming in Boughton End he was composing it, often while working in the fields. When their father died in 1804 he tried to keep up the farm with one of his brothers and was also employed by the Board of Agriculture which commissioned him to write a survey of the county. His General View of the Agriculture of the County of Bedford was issued in 1808; he subsequently prepared a survey for Dorset which was published in 1814 as by William Stevenson who had revised Bachelor’s manuscript. On 6 Aug. 1807 he married Elizabeth Franklin at Lidlington; they had one daughter. Bachelor was interested in dialect and pronunciation and his Orthoëpical Analysis of the English Language was published in 1809 in one volume with his Orthoëpical Analysis of the Dialect of Bedfordshire. (The volume was reissued in a critical facsimile edition in 1974.) He also attempted to establish a system of shorthand writing and invented a new type of seed drill. Bachelor wrote extensively on agricultural matters throughout his life and some of his essays were published in the Farmers’ Journal as by “Bedfordshire.” He died at Lidlington on 23 Feb. 1838 and was buried in the churchyard of St. Margaret’s church. (ODNB 4 Oct. 2022; ancestry.co.uk 4 Oct. 2022; Goodridge) SR
Other Names:
- T. Bachelor