Author: Corfield, Fredrick
Biography:
CORFIELD, Frederick (1762-1826: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 13 Oct. 1862 and baptised on 27 Dec. at St. Mary’s, Taunton, Somerset, the third of at least ten children of William Corfield (1729-1814), a major in the Bengal army, and Christian King (1733-92), who had married at her parish of Crewkerne, Somerset, in 1759. Nothing is known of his early education, which was most likely preparation for the army. He joined the Bengal army and served in the 4th battalion of European Infantry from 1783 until his retirement in 1802 (cadet 1783, ensign 1785, lieut. 1791, capt. 1798). He then returned to Taunton, where he was active in maintaining his local church and was chairman of the committee of the local branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society. He married Elizabeth Darch (1763-1811), the daughter of an army colonel, of Gower Street, London, in India or England at an as yet unknown date and location. She died in Dec. 1811 at Taunton. He then married Grace Trend (1757-1816) on 2 Sept. 1814, at St. Stephen’s, Exeter. She died on 28 Mar. 1816. He lastly married Louisa (Halliday) Sproule (1778-1825), the widow of Major-General Flower Mocher Sproule (1760-1815) on 16 Aug. 1817 at St. Mary Abbot’s, Kensington, London. She died on 29 July 1825. There does not appear to have been any issue from the three marriages. He died at Cheltenham on 16 Feb. 1826 and was buried at St. James’s, Taunton, where there are memorial tablets to him and many members of his family. His eccentric volume of verse, The Mélange (1819), was printed in Taunton and ranged over many topics: cadets’ delusions, tidy housewives, bards, male and female clacks, dreamers, mercenary marriages, etc., with several poems written in India. (ancestry.cco.uk 13 Feb. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 13 Feb. 2024; Hodson, 1: 387; EM Dec. 1811, 474; London Courier 3 Sept. 1814; New Monthly Magazine Sept. 1817, 166; Taunton Courier 4 Apr. 1816, 22 Feb. 1826; English Chronicle 4 Aug. 1825; India Office List [1826], xl) AA