Author: Downing, James
Biography:
DOWNING, James (1781-1855: ancestry.com, Royal Cornwall Gazette)
His autobiographical poem is a primary source of facts about Downing but public records confirm and supplement it. Born in Truro in Cornwall, he served an apprenticeship to a shoemaker but at the age of 18 chose the army instead. He served three years in the Lancashire Fusiliers' 20th Regiment of Foot and fought in the Napoleonic Wars in Holland, Spain, and Egypt. In Alexandria, taking dinner to the other soldiers, he was blinded by the sun and shipped back to England, where he was discharged on 20 May 1802. Following a conversion experience, he tells his story as a warning to his fellow soldiers to give up the ways of sin "before it is too late." He married Mary Allen, twelve years his senior, in her parish of Broughton, Northants, in 1809 and settled in Bedford until her death in 1852, at which point he returned to Truro, where he may have married Ann Coombs in 1854. He died suddenly in Turo, aged 83, and was buried on 2 Feb. 1855. In his later years he was a Wesleyan preacher. (A Narrative of the Life of James Downing; ancestry.com 23 Sept. 2018; Royal Cornwall Gazette 2 Feb. 1855; Cornish Telegraph 1 Oct. 1873; Bibliotheca Cornubiensis [but with incorrect death date]; contributions from AA) HJ