Author: ELLIS, James
Biography:
ELLIS, James (1763-1830: ODNB)
The exact date of his birth is not known but he was baptised in Hexham, Northumberland, on 30 Jan. 1763. His parents were Thomas Ellis, identified as the Hexham town sergeant in the baptismal record, and his wife Jane Charlton. He was educated near Haltwhistle, west of Hexham in Northumberland, before being apprenticed to a solicitor, William Hunter, in Hexham in 1779. Hunter died before Ellis completed his articles and he moved in 1783 to Newcastle upon Tyne where he worked in the law practice of John and Thomas Davidson. His fellow clerks were George Pickering and Thomas Bedingfeld (qq.v.). Upon qualifying, Ellis worked briefly in Hexham as a solicitor before moving back to Newcastle where he set up a law practice. In 1795 at Eglingham, he married Rachel Gallon, the daughter of John and Susan Gallon of High Shaws, Elsdon, Northumberland; they had one child, a daughter, who died young. Ellis was a member of the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries. His law practice was successful and he was able to purchase part of the Otterburn (or Otterbourne) estate near Elsdon with his former employer, John Davidson. Ellis’s share included the manor house; there he continued his antiquarian research and edited the collection of poems included in this database. Early in 1812 he began corresponding with Walter Scott, q.v.; Ellis wrote first to correct a note concerning the Battle of Otterburn in Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border and later supplied Scott with other information on local history. Scott and his family visited Ellis at Otterburn in 1814; in Dec. of the same year Ellis wrote to say that he was sending Scott a copy of Poetry, Fugitive and Original. One of Ellis’s poems in that collection, “Ode to Morpheus,” was first published in GM in Aug. 1792. A poem about William Hunter’s death, published in the Newcastle Chronicle, may also be by Ellis. Rachel died at Otterburn on 17 Jan. 1830; Ellis survived her only until 25 Mar. 1830. They were buried with John and Susan Gallon in the church at Elsdon. (ODNB 22 Oct. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 22 Oct. 2023; Richard Welford, Men of Mark Twixt Tyne and Tweed [1895]; Newcastle Chronicle 4 Jan. 1783; Newcastle Chronicle 3 Apr. 1830; ancestry.co.uk 22 Oct. 2023; GM 62 [Aug. 1792], 751) SR