Author: Elsdale, Samuel
Biography:
ELSDALE, Samuel (1779-1827: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised at Surfleet, Lincs., on 20 May 1779, the elder son of Robinson Elsdale (1744-83), privateer and autobiographer, and his wife Ann (not Mary) Gibbins (1757-1837), who had married on 31 Mar. 1779. After his early death, Ann Elsdale was much admired within the family for her management of her young sons’ education. Samuel was educated at Uppingham School and Lincoln College, Oxford (matric. 1799, BA 1803, MA 1809), was made a Fellow of the college in 1803, and entered the church. He was Curate at Weston and Spalding Cowpit Chapel from 1804 but returned to live in Surfleet. He married Catherine Jenkins on 17 June 1805 at Braunston, Northants. They had at least three daughters and a son. He was elected Master of the Free Grammar School Moulton in 1814 with the Rectorship of Moulton replacing his curacies. He also took boarders into his house. His one publication, the volume listed, appears to exist only in the third edition and there is no copy recorded in the UK. The Eclectic Review (July 1810, 667) announced the forthcoming publication of the second edition with the profits to go to the local Lunatic Asylum and noted that the first edition had appeared the year before (1809) but no copy of either edition has been located. He was a more versatile poet than the gloomy title suggests, with several poems printed (or reprinted) in the GM and Ackerman’s Poetical Magazine: "The Negro Slave" (PM 2 [1809] 345-6), "Lines on Surfleet" (GM Mar. 1809, 254), "The Sea-Fight" (GM July 1809, 655), "On British Hospitals" (GM Nov. 1809, 1056). He died on 13 July 1827 and was buried on 20 July at Moulton church. (ancestry.co.uk 2 Oct. 2021; findmypast.co.uk 2 Oct. 2021; "Elsdale, Robinson," ODNB 2 Oct. 2021; Lincstothepast [Lincolnshire Record Office]; Oxford University and City Herald 27 August 1814; Nicolas Carlisle, A Concise description of the Endowed Grammar Schools in England and Wales [1818],1: 837-40; Anna Maria Moon, In Memoriam. The Rev. G. W. Leeves [1873], 137-47; Stamford Mercury 20 July 1827; Manchester Courier 16 Dec. 1837) AA