Author: Barton, Bernard
Biography:
Barton, Bernard (1784-1849: WBIS)
Born in Carlisle to Quaker parents, John and Mary (Done) Barton. His mother died shortly after his birth and his father remarried but then he too died young. Bernard attended a Quaker school in Ipswich and was apprenticed to a shopkeeper at Halsted in Essex. On 6 Aug. 1807 he married Lucy Jesup, his master's daughter, and set up as a coal and corn merchant with her brother in Woodbridge, Suffolk. After his wife died on 29 June 1808 following the birth of their daughter, Lucy, he gave up business, was a private tutor for a year, and then took a job as a clerk in a Woodbridge bank, where he stayed for forty years. He published his first volume of verse, Metrical Effusions, in 1812. His last, Household Verses (1845) was dedicated to the Queen. His efforts brought him into correspondence with literary circles and he may be better known today for his letters than for his verses. His friend Charles Lamb, whom he consulted about leaving the bank and relying on his writing, advised against, saying, "Keep to your bank and the bank will keep you." Barton wrote the verse included in Lucy Barton's Bible Letters for Children (1831). (WBIS; ODNB 11 Nov. 2017)
Other Names:
- B. B.