Author: Goldsmith, John Borough
Biography:
GOLDSMITH, John Borough (1780-1834: ancestry.co.uk)
It is not yet known where or when he was born and his date of birth is taken from his burial record. His parents are therefore not known. Nothing is known about his education. He enlisted in the 23rd Light Dragoons in 1799 and served in Egypt 1801-3. Several poems in Fugitive Pieces record his experiences. He then served in Ireland until 1809, reaching the rank of Sergeant-Major. He fought at the Battle of Talavera (1809) and was taken prisoner and held at Briançon in the French Alps. He spent four years and nine months in captivity. He discharged himself without pension in 1814. On his return to England he joined the North Derbyshire Troop of Yeomanry Cavalry and served for a further ten years. He married Jane Sidney Pilkington (1792-1849), possibly in Ireland but there is no surviving record. They had ten children between 1818 and 1831. However, he failed to re-establish himself in civilian life and secure employment. He tried his hand at being an auctioneer, but without success; he was forced to put Steeple Grange, his house in Wirksworth, up for sale in 1832. Shortly before his death “circumstances of distress and privation, with a large young family” led him to attempt to supply “the immediate wants of his family” by publishing by subscription the historical play, King Henry the First(1834) which he had written while a prisoner of war. He died before it was published, on 25 Feb. 1834 at Wirksworth, and was buried at Atlow, leaving a widow and seven surviving children under thirteen. It was reported that “The late Mr. Goldsmith was possessed of very superior talents, but had for the last six years been a prey to disappointment, which finally terminated his existence”--which might possibly be code for suicide (Derby Mercury 12 Mar. 1834). Jane Goldsmith was subsequently listed in the 1841 Census as a schoolmistress still in Wirksworth; she died in Leeds, aged 57, at the home of her son, John Charles Goldsmith, a colliery clerk. He subsequently became a merchant in London and on his remarriage in 1885, listed his father as a Captain in the 23rd Dragoons, almost certainly an embellishment. (ancestry.co.uk 28 Sept. 2023; Nottingham Review 7 Mar. 1834; Derby Mercury 12 Mar. 1834, 30 Apr. 1834, and other issues) AA
Other Names:
- J. B. Goldsmith