Author: Good, Joseph
Biography:
GOOD, Joseph (1736-1817: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 16 Apr. 1736 at St. Mary’s, Bridgwater, Somerset, the second son of Benjamin Good and Mary Headford, who had married in 1729. His early education is not known but he proceeded to Balliol College, Oxford (matric. 1753, BA 1757), and was then ordained deacon (1758) and priest (1760) in the established church. He was master of the grammar school at Martock, Somerset, from 1758, and possibly curate, until around 1766 when he became rector of East Lambrook, South Somerset, a position he held until his death. He may also have acquired another living at Charmouth, Dorset, where he died, aged 81, and was buried on 22 Apr. 1817. He married Mary Bowyer on 31 July 1760 at Martock. They had two children, including Thomas Bowyer Good, who was educated at Blundell’s and St. John’s College, Cambridge. She died in 1766 and on 4 Aug. 1772 at North Cheriton, Somerset, he married Elizabeth Plucknett, with whom he had a further three children. She predeceased him and was buried at Charmouth on 13 Apr. 1816. Poems on Several Occasions (1793?) was an old-fashioned volume with an old-fashioned title, even more so when reprinted at Sherborne, Dorset, in 1805. He acknowledged that the lead poem, “Spring” (5-23), in two cantos, was a pale imitation of Thomson and a very early effort. “The Schoolmaster” (30-2), addressed to his old schoolmaster, is unremarkable but an early instance of the genre. The British Library copy of the 1805 edition, listed here, contains his manuscript annotations. It is not known why he published so late in life. (ancestry.co.uk 30 Nov. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 30 Nov. 2023; Watkins, 133; Bath Chronicle 2 May 1816; OUCH 26 Apr. 1817; GM May 1817, 473) AA