Author: Gillum, William
Biography:
GILLUM, William (1762-97: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 10 Mar. 1762 and baptised on 4 Apr. at St. Margaret Pattens, City of London, the eldest of five children of William Gillum (1735-69), a clerk in the EIC, and Mary Miller (1740-1819), who had married the previous year in the same church with the consent of her parents. Nothing is known of his education but he followed his father and became a clerk in the EIC Office in London. He married Sarah Rennard (1760-1812) at her parish, Funtington, Sussex, on 5 July 1785. They went on to have two sons and three daughters who were baptised at St. Andrew’s, Holborn, London, but they appear later to have retired to Sussex. He died 9/10 January 1797 at Walberton, Sussex, and was buried at St. Andrew’s, Oving, Sussex. In addition to Miscellaneous Poems, he published a number of dramatic pieces in GM from 1787 to 1790 as well as a 70-page political tract, The Origin, Progress, and Expediency of Continuing the Present War with France, Impartially Considered (1794). (ancestry.co.uk 4 Feb. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 4 Feb. 2024; Emily Lorraine de Montluzin, The Poetry of the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1731-1800, gmpoetrydatabase.org ; Kentish Weekly17 Jan. 1797; GM Jan. 1797, 82; Baker, 1.1.278) AA