Author: Franklin, Robert
Biography:
FRANKLIN, Robert (1790-1877: findmypast.co.uk)
He was baptised on 27 Nov. 1790 at Barrow on Humber, Lincolnshire, the son of George and Mary Franklin. His mother’s maiden name is not known. He was brought up at the post mill at Ferriby Sluice, near Barrow, until he was fourteen when he left in tears and went into domestic service, which he always regarded as “servitude.” He did, however, acknowledge that he was never badly treated and was himself socially conservative. What he considered “overruling Providence” eventually brought him back to Ferriby Sluice but the complications of bankruptcy (1835-40) would again force him to leave. He then became a coal carrier and later a coal merchant in Barton but had retired by 1871. After The Miller’s Muse (1824), he published three more volumes of poetry: The House of Brocklesby (1844), Wanderings in the Crystal Palace (1851), and Notes on the War and the Blessing of the Peace (1856). He married Ann Catherine Shimells on 1 Dec. 1817 at South Ferriby, Lincolnshire, and they went on to have a family of at least eight (and probably twelve or more) children. She later gave evidence at his inquest that he had been ill for some time but had died peacefully in his bed on 23 Mar. 1877 at their home in Barton upon Humber.(findmypast.co.uk 4 Jul. 2021; Stamford Mercury 30 Mar. 1877; Johnson item 339; Spenserians; Sketches of Obscure Poets [1833] 142-50; Nineteenth-Century Labouring-Class Poets 1800-1900, ed. Scott McEathron [2006] 1: 291-307, 369-74) AA