Author: Gosse, Henry
Biography:
GOSSE, Henry (1788-1864: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 23 Nov. 1788 at Battersea, now south London, the youngest of five children of Joseph Smith Gosse (1741-1812) and Sarah Benwell (1753-1834), who had married at St. Mary’s, Battersea, on 30 Apr. 1779, but were or became dissenters and later registered his birth at Dr. Williams’s Library in 1791. The family lived in Clapham Common and in 1797 his father had bought the manor of Chessington, Surrey, which Henry Gosse inherited in 1812. Nothing is known of his education. He married Ann(e) Benwell, who was probably a cousin, on 28 Apr. 1813, at St. Mary’s. They had one daughter, Charlotte Anne, born in Clapham in 1814, and one son, Henry, born at Epsom in 1815. Thereafter they lived as landed gentry in Epsom and he became a magistrate and justice of the peace. He seems to have had some sympathy for Methodism and made donations to several missionary causes. He was also a supporter of the Evangelical Alliance. He died on 24 Jan. 1864 at Epsom, leaving an estate of around £30,000. His wife, Anne, died in 1866. Poetical Translations(1822), his only known work, was printed privately and circulated among friends. It consisted of three translations: Canto XVI of Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, the Ceyx and Alcyone episode in Book XI of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Canto IX of Voltaire’s Henriade. (ancestry.co.uk 29 July 2023; findmypast.co.uk 29 July 2023; Martin 1: 206; Morning Post 27 Jan. 1864, 28 Aug. 1866) AA