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Author: Brackenbury, Robert Carr

Biography:

BRACKENBURY, Robert Carr (1752-1818: ODNB)

He was the eldest of six children born to Carr Brackenbury (d 1763), an attorney, and his wife Isabella Booth who had married in St. Margaret’s, Westminster, on 1 Mar. 1742. He was baptised at Panton, Lincolnshire, on 28 Apr. 1752. After studying at Felsted school in Essex he was admitted to Catharine Hall, Cambridge, on 20 May 1769. He did not take a degree and, although he had intended taking holy orders, a spiritual crisis eventually led to a close friendship with and support for John Wesley. Wesley visited him at his home in Raithby, Lincolnshire; the two men travelled to Scotland together; and they corresponded frequently. Brackenbury built a chapel at Raithby which Wesley dedicated in 1779 and, although he was never ordained, he was counted as one of Wesley’s preachers. He used his own funds to build other Methodist chapels. On 21 Sept. 1780 he married Jane Coatsworth in Walcot St. Swithin, Somerset, but she died, aged twenty-four, on 3 Mar. 1782. On 3 Mar. 1795 he married Sarah Holland, daughter of the commander of the Loughborough volunteers, according to the rites of the Church of England in All Saints church, Loughborough. He suffered from ill health throughout his life and died at Raithby on 11 Aug. 1818. He was buried near his first wife, Jane, in the chancel of Raithby parish church. His will, now in the Lincolnshire archives, left money to the Methodists. Sarah Brackenbury died in 1847. In addition to the books listed in the database he also published An Estimate of Human Life (1788). (ODNB 28 July 2023; ACAD; ancestry.co.uk 28 July 2023; findmypast.co.uk 28 July 2023; National Archives [UK])

 

Other Names:

  • R. C. Brackenbury
 

Books written (3):

London: [no publisher: printed "for the Author"], 1791