Author: Briggs, John
Biography:
BRIGGS, John (1788-1824: Remains)
He was born on 25 Dec. 1788 in a cottage near Cartmel, Cumbria, the third son of John Briggs, a basket-maker, and his wife Jane Anson, who had married in 1784. His mother taught him the alphabet and he received elementary schooling but took up his father’s trade. He continued to read by borrowing books, acquired some Latin, and clearly had literary ambitions. He married Margaret Braithwaite on 31 Oct. 1808 at Ulverston. They went on to have several children. In search of income to support his family, he opened a school in Ulverston in 1809, attended mostly by poor boys. He then ran a school near Ellel, Lancaster, 1810-14. In 1816, through his father’s Methodist connections, he was appointed teacher at the new Methodist school in his home town of Cartmel. He lost his post and home when he refused to convert. He had begun contributing to the Kendal Chronicle and Lancaster Gazette while teaching and, after dismissal, embarked upon a new career by setting up the Ulverston Magazine (renamed Lonsdale Magazine in 1820). He later edited the Kendal Gazette. He published Poems on Various Subjects (1818), raising subscriptions by going door to door. The Kendal poet Isabella Lickbarrow (q.v.) subscribed. It contained the now obligatory elegy to Princess Charlotte, an ode to his pipe, and three topographical poems of note: "Chapel-Lands, an Elegy," "Furness Abbey, an Elegy," and "Windermere." At the end of the volume he announced the imminent publication of Satires, in Three Books, but it did not appear. He died on 21 Nov. 1824, near Cartmel. His Remains (1825) were published by subscription for the benefit of his widow and children. Hartley Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth, and Lickbarrow (qq.v.) subscribed. It reprinted his lively "Letters from the Lakes" which had first appeared in the Lonsdale Magazine, memories of Westmorland, tales, unpublished verse, and a sketch of his life. ("A Sketch of the Life of John Briggs," The Remains [1825], 353-95; Johnson, item 134; findmypast.co.uk 29 Oct. 2021; ancestry.co.uk 29 Oct. 2021; Lancaster Gazette 18 Oct. 1817, 9 Apr. 1825; Westmorland Gazette 27 Nov. 1824) AA