Author: Gibson, Francis
Biography:
GIBSON, Francis (1752-1805: ODNB)
He was baptised at Whitby, Yorkshire, on 16 Jan. 1752, the son of Joseph Whitby, commander of a merchant ship, and his wife Mary Daniel, the daughter of the Comptroller of Customs, who had married in 1747. He was educated at a school in Whitby run by Lionel Charlton, a well-known mathematics teacher who also wrote A History of Whitby (1779). He followed his father to sea in the merchant service and sailed to North America, the Netherlands, Russia, and the Baltics, before becoming Collector of Customs at Whitby in 1787. His Sailing Directions for the Baltic (1791) were said to have been used by Hyde Parker and Nelson in the Copenhagen expedition of 1801. He also wrote a play Streanshall Abbey; or, the Danish Invasion (1800) and translated Memoirs of the Bastille (1802). He was a Fellow of the Antiquarian Society and honorary member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He married Alice Fishburn, the daughter of a Whitby master shipwright, on 30 Dec. 1774 at St. Mary the Virgin, Whitby. A daughter, Mary, was baptised on 18 Jan. 1776, and Alice Gibson died twelve days later, probably due to childbirth complications. He then married a widow, Ann (Evans) Falkner, on 4 Oct. 1785, again at St. Mary the Virgin. They also had a daughter. Towards the end of his life, his finances deteriorated as he had stood surety for his daughter’s husband’s debts. He died of “a nervous fever” on 24 Jul. 1805 at Whitby. His Poetical Remains (1807) were edited with a memoir by his lifelong friend William Watkins (1755-1811), who had been a contemporary at Lionel Charlton’s school. (ODNB 16 Jun. 2022; ancestry.co.uk 16 Jun. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 16 Jun. 2022; William Watkins, “Essay on the Life, Writings, and Genius of the Late Francis Gibson” in Gibson, Poetical Remains [1807], v-xiv; Whitby Authors, 33-5; York Herald 3 Aug. 1805) AA