Author: Gooch, Rebecca
Biography:
GOOCH, Rebecca, formerly PASHLEY (1785-1841: ancestry.co.uk)
She was baptised on 31 Jan. 1785 at Denton, Norfolk, the eldest daughter of William Pashley and his wife Priscilla Thompson, who had married in 1782. She married Thomas Gooch of Southwold, East Suffolk, a printer and bookseller, on 26 Dec. 1820 at Redenhall, South Norfolk. They had at least three children. Her husband became a farmer at Brandeston and later at Pulham. He also became a Congregational minister. Her Original Poems (1821), written at various locations in Suffolk and Norfolk, are mostly unremarkable apart from those recalling her youth and in particular the death of her mother in 1793 when she was only eight. "On Approaching the Place of My Nativity," written in 1817 at Denton, moves from the traditional female nostalgia poem of youthful happiness and security (with the usual topographical accompaniments) to an extended treatment of the shock of her mother’s death, and is clearly indebted to Cowper. In May 1820, she was still struggling with her mother’s death in "On the Receipt of My Mother’s Funeral Sermon," which records her attempt at Christian resignation. John Glyde included her more conventional "My Native Dale" in his Norfolk Garland (1872). She died in 1841 at Pulham. (ancestry.co.uk 9 Nov. 2020; Bury and Norwich Post 3 Jan. 1821) AA