Author: Bicknell, John
Biography:
BICKNELL, John (1746-87: ancestry.co.uk)
He is traditionally identified as co-author, with Thomas Day (q.v.), of The Dying Negro (1773), but the actual extent of his collaboration is unknown. He was baptised on 28 July 1746 at St. Andrew’s, Holborn, London, the second son of Robert Bicknell, barrister of the Inner Temple, and his wife Sarah; her surnames may have been Breadalbane Campbell. (His grandfather, Robert Bicknell, was also a barrister.) He entered the Middle Temple on 22 June 1761 and was called the bar on 10 Nov. 1769. On 16 Apr. 1784 he married Sabrina Sidney (1756/7-1843: ODNB) in St. Philip’s church, Birmingham. Sabrina (formerly Ann) had been adopted by Thomas Day who planned to make her into an obedient wife for himself. When the plan failed, she became a ladies' companion and later married Bicknell. They had two sons, John Laurens (q.v.) and Henry Edgeworth Bicknell. He died on 27 Mar. 1787 and was buried on 2 Apr. in the cemetery at St. Dunstan in the West, Fleet Street. (ancestry.co.uk 16 Feb. 2023; Aris’s Birmingham Gazette 19 Apr. 1784; ODNB [for Sabrina Sidney] 29 Apr. 2025; Register of Admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple [1949]) SR