Author: Ekins, Jeffery
Biography:
EKINS, Jeffery (1731-91: ODNB)
He was born on 10 June 1731 and baptised at Barton Seagrave, Northamptonshire, on 2 July, the son of Rev. Geoffrey Ekins (1697-1773), the Rector, and his wife Susanna Allicock (1702-92), who had married at her parish of Loddington, Northants., in 1729. He was educated at Eton and King’s College Cambridge (matric. 1750, BA 1755, MA 1758, DD 1781, Fellow 1753). He returned briefly to Eton as an assistant master and then held a series of rectorships in the established church: Quainton, Buckinghamshire (1761-75) (which his father had previously held); Morpeth, Northumberland (1775-91); and Sedgefield, Durham (1777-91). He was appointed Dean of Carlisle (1782-91). He married Ann Baker on 23 Apr. 1765 at St. James’s, Piccadilly. They went on to have seven children. He died at Parson’s Green, Fulham, London, on 20 Nov. 1791 “after a lingering illness” and was buried at All Saints, Fulham. He early acquired a reputation as an accomplished classicist with his translation of part of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica as The Loves of Medea and Jason (1771), reprinted the following year and the lead poem in his posthumous collection, Poems (1810). His most notable original poem in the collection was “An Essay on the Illusions of Fancy.” An allegorical drama, Florio; or, The Pursuit of Happiness, was seen in manuscript and admired by his friend Richard Cumberland (q.v.), but was not published and does not appear to have survived. (ODNB 21 Sept. 2022; ancestry.co.uk 21 Sept. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 21 Sept. 2022; GM Nov. 1791, 1070 and June 1813, 557; Richard Cumberland, Memoirs [1806], 124; John Nichols, Illustrations [1858], 8: 191) AA