Author: Byles, George
Biography:
BYLES, George (1759-1820: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 25 Dec. 1759 at Blandford Forum, Dorset, the son of Richard Biles. His mother’s name is not recorded and remains unknown. (Ancestry trees give Mary Lane but do not explain a marriage of 1739 and first issue of 1750 which is highly unusual.) Nothing is known of his education. He was probably the George Byles referred to by Thomas Bewick, who noted that George Byles of Swarley’s Club “came from one of the southern counties, and commenced as a teacher in Newcastle. He was gentlemanly in his manners and conversation, and of a most lively and animated cast of character.” This would place him in Newcastle before 1790. As a widower (George Byles), he married Catherine Greenway at All Saints, Southampton, on 27 Oct. 1792. The name of his first wife is unknown or if there was issue. With his second wife he had at least eleven children. In Southampton he was also a teacher, writing-master, stationer, bookseller, and maker of fine pens, with particular interest in Geography and Penmanship, trading from 15 High Street. However, he was arrested for debt in 1804 and spent time in the Debtor’s Gaol. This became the subject of his poem Reveries in Confinement(1804), which also included another poem on his prison experience, "College Pastimes." By 1809 he had managed to secure a position in Norwich as Clerk of Ordnance Stores. The Vicissitudes of Human Life (1809) further charts his difficulties, reprints "College Pastimes," and includes "On Bewick’s excellent Engravings on Wood." It also includes interesting geographical notes and a fine appreciation of William Cowper. For about twenty years he used the name Byles--from at least 1790 to 1809--but seems to have reverted to Biles when he later moved to Frimley, Surrey, where his son Charles James Biles was first a teacher then an inn keeper. His son appears to have opened a school in 1818 but closed it in 1832. George Byles/Biles died at Frimley, aged 61, and was buried at St. Peter’s on 9 Aug. 1820. His wife survived him and died in 1826. (ancestry.co.uk 8 Dec. 2021; findmypast.co.uk 8 Dec. 2021; Salisbury and Winchester Journal 1 Feb. 1802, 10 Jan. 1803, 19 Mar. 1804, 21 May 1804, 25 June 1804; Hampshire Chronicle 19 Apr. 1802; Reading Mercury 9 Jan. 1832; Thomas Bewick, Memoir [1887], 152) AA