Author: Gascoigne, Henry Barnet
Biography:
GASCOIGNE, Henry Barnet (1779-1820: ancestry.com)
Baptized at Rugby on 24 July 1779, Henry was the son of a well-to-do farmer, William Gascoigne (1745-1800), and his wife, Mary (d 1802). Having entered Rugby School in 1787, in about 1789 he volunteered as a sailor aboard the 40-gun warship Mermaid. In 1794, he was promoted to ensign. After a hiatus in Rugby in 1804-05, he returned to naval service as a marine. Gascoigne was wounded in a heroic action on 4 July 1806 when he and three surviving members of a launch of the 38-gun warship Melpomene boarded a French frigate, killed three of the sailors on board, and took the remaining eleven prisoner. Invalided at the rank of lieutenant, in 1808 he retired on half-pay. On 7 July of that year, at All Saints, Frindsbury, North Aylesford, Kent, he married Nancy Gibbs (1778-1865) (called “Emma” by Henry), a daughter of William Gibbs (d 1813) and his wife, Mary (d 1794). Together they had three children, John Hawkins (b 1811), who became a lieutenant general in the Royal Marines, Susanna (b 1813), and Elizabeth (b 1815). In the year of his retirement, he purchased a 400-acre farm. Initially successful, a downturn in agricultural prices led to his bankruptcy. Gascoigne’s subsequent struggles caused him to become an advocate for the poor. Over the next ten years he published minor works of poetry detailing life at sea, and political pamphlets such as “Suggestions for the Employment of the Poor” (1817) and “Pauperism, its Evils and Burden Reduced” (1818). In 1808 Hatchard published Gascoigne’s 441-page poem, The Cruise; A Political Sketch in Eight Cantos. “By a Naval Officer”. In 1825, he self-published a second edition, now reduced to 161 pages and with the title changed, for reasons of copyright, to Gascoigne’s Path to Naval Fame. The poem is a detailed description of life aboard a British man of war that ought to be of interest to naval historians. A penchant for self-promotion stands out in all his works. For several years, he ran an agricultural real estate agency at 73 Cornhill, London. He was buried at St Andrew church, Rugby, on 25 Nov. 1820. (ancestry.com 28 Mar. 2023; freereg.com.uk 28 Mar. 2023; PROB 11/1557; Naval Chronicle for 1807 [July-Dec. 1807], 195; Monthly Magazine [1808], 87; Kentish Gazette 12 July 1808; Evans and Ruffy’s Farm Journal 21 Sep. 1818; Rugby Register [1847], 88; The Meteor [1883], 129) JC