Author: Clare, John
Biography:
CLARE, John (1793-1864: ODNB)
The eldest child and only son of Parker Clare, a thresher, and his wife Ann Stimson, he was born in Helpston, Northamptonshire, on 13 July 1793 and baptised on 11 Aug. 1793. The family lived in a small cottage, later converted to even smaller tenements, and paid the rent by selling produce from the garden. Although he was an avid reader, Clare attended local schools for no more than three months each year until he was fourteen when he was employed at a succession of labouring jobs; he also spent time in the Northampton militia. Clare began writing verse in a notebook for which he made a title page dated 1814, “A Rustic’s Pastime, In Leisure Hours.” His compositions drew on many sources, including childhood, nature and landscape, religion, and gypsy culture. He married Martha Turner (1800-71)) on 16 Mar. 1820 at Great Casterton, Rutland; their first child, Anna Maria, was baptised there on 17 June. They had six more surviving children. His first book, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, issued by London-based Taylor and Hessey and a Stamford bookseller, Edward Drury, was a success and Clare spent time in London where he met other literary figures. A downturn came in 1827 with poor sales of The Shepherd’s Calendar and The Rural Muse (1835) was the last of his books to be issued in his lifetime. In 1832 he was offered a cottage in Northborough but he failed to develop the attached land into a small-holding that could support a growing family. Clare applied to the RLF in Jan. 1835 and received £50; a further £50 was paid in 1841. He began suffering from delusions and from 1837 he was a voluntary inmate at an asylum at High Beach in Epping Forest. His return to Northborough in July 1841 was short-lived: by Dec. his conduct was so alarming that he was committed to Northampton General Lunatic Asylum where he remained until his death on 20 May 1864. Clare was buried in the churchyard at Helpston on 25 May 1864. In 1989 a memorial to him was placed in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey. Earlier editions of Clare’s poetry “corrected” his grammar and spelling but over time the trend has been to preserve what he wrote. (ODNB 10 Jan. 2024; ancestry.co.uk 10 Jan. 2024; Jonathan Bate, John Clare: A Biography [2005]; RLF file 808)