Author: GELLATLY, Peter
Biography:
GELLATLY, Peter (1798-1861: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 30 Jan. 1798 and baptised on 2 Apr. at Bull Lane Independent, Stepney, East London, the son of Peter Gellatly (1752-1818) and Elizabeth Gibbs (1761-1857), who had married at Canterbury on 11 June 1793. His mother was a friend of Edward Perronet (q.v.), Vicar of Shoreham, and of the musician William Shrubsole. They moved to London and joined the dissenting congregation of Samuel Brewer (1724-96) at Stepney Meeting House on 29 May 1794. His father died on 29 Jan. 1818 at the family home at 4 Church Lane, Limehouse, East London. Peter Gellatly (jun.) was articled to a solicitor for five years in 1820 and practised thereafter. He married Mary Ann Forster (1803-38) on 19 July 1827 at Frittenden, Kent. They went on to have six children and lived at 4 Wellington Place, Limehouse. His wife died on 6 Dec. 1838, at home, probably due to post-childbirth complications. He was recorded with his children in the 1841 census still living at Wellington Place but by the 1851 census had moved to 1 Albion Place, Limehouse, where he died of a stroke or heart attack (“apoplexy”) on 12 Oct. 1861, leaving an estate of under £20,000. Identification has been made possible through the six-part series entitled “The Solitary Reflector” which he contributed to the European Magazine in 1816, sometimes signing the essays from Limehouse. His Evening Hours (1817) was advertised by his printer, John Chappell of 98 Royal Exchange, as by “P. Gellatly,” and reviewers were aware of his authorship, but hitherto he has not been fully identified. He states in his preface that the volume was written between the ages of sixteen and nineteen. It contained an “Ode to Genius,” various sonnets (including “The Elgin Marbles”), and a long poem on Abelard and Heloise. (ancestry.co.uk 25 May 2025; East London Observer 19 Oct. 1861; Evangelical Magazine Nov. 1858, 643-7; MH 11 Dec. 1838; Morning Post 18 Dec. 1857; European Magazine, various issues 1816, review Sept. 1817, 253-55) AA