Author: Corry, John
Biography:
CORRY, John (b c. 1762-1838: ancestry.co.uk)
A prolific and versatile writer about whose life little is known for certain, he was probably born in or near Newry, County Down, in about 1762. Both the ODNB and the DIB claim that he was in London in 1792; by 1797, however, he was in Newry to solicit subscriptions for his Odes and Elegies. Some of the subscribers are United Irishmen and the book is dedicated to the people of Ireland. The preface states his intention to publish a second edition in Dublin but it was in London that The Patriot was issued in 1798 and he had likely moved there. Subsequently he wrote and published numerous other works including local histories, biographies, novels, satires, and moral tales for youth; most of his fiction and some of his other works were issued by Benjamin Crosby in London. (Two of his books published by Crosby in 1803, An Address to the People of Great Britain and The Life of Bonaparte, have frontispiece illustrations by Isaac Cruikshank.) His Life of George Washington (1800) was republished many times—sometimes with a variant title—and translated into German. In the 1810s he lived in Macclesfield and in 1836 he was in Toxteth Park, near Liverpool. Likely it was in Toxteth that he died in June 1838; he was buried at St. James’s church, Toxteth, Liverpool, on 27 June 1838. Information about his final years and his family is found in letters to the RLF from his wife and children. The first, from Catherine Corry (b c. 1790) and dated 17 Sept. 1836, gives the facts: he is in poor health, has seven children (five sons and two daughters), and is at work on a history of Staffordshire. The Fund eventually paid her £25 with a further £15 granted after John Corry’s death. She wrote again in 1842 when her son, John Corry Jr., a teacher, died of tuberculosis but, according to the rules of the Fund, she could not be granted any further aid. Over the next twenty years a daughter, Elizabeth, and a son, Joseph, wrote repeatedly and fruitlessly seeking further assistance. (DIB 20 Dec. 2021; ODNB 20 Dec. 2021; ancestry.co.uk 20 Dec. 2021; RLF file 867; WorldCat; E. W. Pitcher, “The Miscellaneous Works of John Corry (1760?-1825?)" PBSA 80 [1986] 83-90) SR