Author: Gough, Benjamin
Biography:
GOUGH, Benjamin (1805-77: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born at Southborough, near Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in 1805 but no baptismal record has been found and his parents are unknown. Nothing is known about his education. He became a brick and stone merchant and a Wesleyan Methodist preacher in the early 1830s in the Newington area of Lambeth, south London. He is recorded at 36 and 37 Newington Crescent (1839-51). He then appears to have become a farmer and landowner of Mountfield House and a 77-acre farm at Faversham, Kent (1851-71). Around 1876, he retired to Woburn Sands, Bedfordshire, and was still preaching within a week of his death. He married Jane Berry on 8 Oct. 1833 at Boughton, Kent. They had one son. He died on 28 Nov. 1877, leaving an estate of under £200 administered by Jane, his widow. In addition to The Indian Tale, and Other Poems (1832), he published verse throughout his life: Lyra Sabbatica (1865), Kentish Lyrics (1867), Songs from the Woodlands, and other Poems (1872), Hymns of Prayer and Praise (1875), Songs for British Workmen (1876), etc. He was a regular contributor of verse and prose to the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine, Good Words, The Sunday Magazine, The British Workman, Band of Hope, and various newspapers, particularly the Morning Advertiser. (ancestry.co.uk 17 Mar. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 17 Mrs. 2023; Julian, 445-6; Miller, 481; Cyclopaedia of Methodism [1878], 415; Kentish Gazette 22 Oct. 1833; East Kent Gazette 15 Dec. 1877) AA