Author: Baker, William Bennett
Biography:
BAKER, William Bennett (1799-1875: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 9 Nov. at Brinscombe and baptised on 29 Dec. 1799 at Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, the son of John Baker and his wife Elizabeth Bennett, who had married at Motcombe, Dorset, the previous year. Nothing is known of his education. He married Jane Ivey, the daughter of Robert Ivey, the dissenting minister of Uley, on 20 Mar. 1824 at Minchinhampton. There were several children, all of whom predeceased him. A son died at the Battle of Balaclava (1854). His wife had also died by 1851 but her death has not been traced. Henry Heavisides states that “he was for some years connected with agricultural pursuits” (Annals 174) but this may have been as a maker of agricultural tools and instruments. He was declared bankrupt twice as an ironmonger, once in London in 1831 and later in Wolverhampton in 1849. After the second bankruptcy he returned to London and was recorded as a “copying clerk” in Regent Street, living alone. Thereafter Heavisides states that “after many vicissitudes in life he left the South and came to Stockton” (Annals 174) where he became a reporter for the Sunderland Herald. Around 1857 he started to print the Stockton Herald and ran it for over ten years, but ill health and financial losses forced him to apply to the Royal Literary Fund for assistance in 1873. Writing from 5 Holly Terrace, Millfield, Sunderland, he stated, “I have been engaged in the pursuits of literature for more than half a century . . . I am left like a wreck, with shattered health, fast approaching to blindness, upon the verge of poverty” (ALS 24 Feb. 1873). He failed to secure an award and sometime afterwards returned to Minchinhampton, where he died in Dec. 1875 and was buried on 1 Jan. 1876. In addition to the work listed here he published two further volumes of poetry while at Stockton: Stray Leaves from Parnassus (1865) and Fields and Flowers; or, the Stockton Naturalist(1867). He also published several ephemeral pamphlets such as The History of the Potatoe (1866) and The Mystery of the Sea (1867). (ancestry.co.uk 16 Aug. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 16 Aug. 2022; RLF, 1/1909; Henry Heavisides, The Annals of Stockton-on-Tees [1865], 174; Bristol Mirror 1 May 1824; London Gazette various issues; Globe 29 Oct. 1831; Wolverhampton Chronicle 28 Feb. 1849) AA