Author: Barker, Jemima
Biography:
BARKER, Jemima (1792-1871: ancestry.co.uk)
She was born in Sion Row, Twickenham, the younger of two daughters of Benjamin Barker and his wife Sarah Harman who had married at St. Giles Cripplegate in 1787. (Members of her mother’s family (Harman, Putley) subscribed to her volume and probably accounted for the large number of Norwood and Walworth subscribers.) Her parents were Dissenters and registered her birth at Dr. Williams' Library, Redcross Street, Cripplegate. In later life she joined the Established Church and was baptised on 17 Apr. 1851 at St. John the Evangelist, Clapham. She ran a school for many years from her house at 7 Acre Place, Brixton, from where she signed the preface to her Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1822) and where she lived until the end of her life. The poems are mostly noteworthy for how an evangelical sensibility was influenced by romantic topics: "The Missionary" sits alongside the now obligatory poem on the death of Prince Charlotte, two topographical poems on Norwood, and a long poem "The Sea." She was found dead at her house, seated in a chair, on 15 Dec. 1871, with the cause of death given as old age and heart disease. She left an estate of just under £600. (ancestry.co.uk 10 Jun. 2021; findmypast.co.uk 10 Jun. 2021; GRO Death Cert; NPC Will) AA