Author: Cordingley, John
Biography:
CORDINGLEY, John (c. 1796-1877: ancestry.co.uk)
By location, age, and circumstances, the author of Poems was almost certainly John Cordingley of Ipswich whose poems were promoted by the Rev. R. Cobbold (q.v.). R. Deck of Ipswich published Cordingley’s Poems and Cobbold’s Original, Serious, and Religious Poetry and advertised both books together in Nov. 1827. No birth record has been located and Census records give different possible dates (1796-1800) for his birth. His father was William Cordingley, an Ipswich shipwright; nothing is known about his mother. Cordingley’s poems make it likely he served in the army in Europe before settling in Ipswich where he worked first as a shipwright and then as a timber merchant. He married Mary Jane Booth (d 1863) on 12 Jan. 1818 in St. Peter’s, Ipswich; they had five children but three predeceased their parents. However, his family life was complicated by his relationship with Sophia Osborn (b c. 1805 in Colchester, Essex). Evidence points to her having four children with John Cordingley, born in 1832, 1834, 1837, and 1841. The children were baptised with “Cordingley Osborn” as their surnames but they later used just Cordingley. Immediately after Mary Jane’s death in 1863, Cordingley married Sophia Osborn and they are recorded as living with Sophia’s sister at 19 Tavern Street, Ipswich, in the 1871 Census. Sophia died in 1874. Cordingley followed her in 1877 and he was buried in Ipswich on 4 Oct. In addition to Poems (1827), he may have written The Orwell: A Descriptive Poem (1826), the title page of which states that the poem of thirteen pages is published for the benefit of a poor family. (ancestry.co.uk 7 Mar. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 7 Mar. 2024; Cambridge Chronicle 26 Jan. 1827; Suffolk Chronicle 17 Nov. 1827) SR