Author: Grenfell, John
Biography:
GRENFELL, John (1772-1816: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised John Maugham Granville Grenfell on 4 Dec. 1772 at St. Hilary, Cornwall, the son of Pascoe Grenfell (1729-1810), a tin and copper merchant in Marazion, and his wife Mary Tremenheere (1734-1826). Nothing is known of his education and he probably followed his father into the family business, spending time in Cornwall and London. His poetry was only published after his death and he was better known for his papers on the manufacturing of copper and tin plate, the state of Cornish mines, and a defence of paper currency. He married Sophia Perry Turner on 25 Apr. 1796 at St. Andrew by the Wardrobe, City of London. They went on to have eight children, with two sons becoming Admirals in the Royal Navy. Two occasional verses record events in the lives of his daughters Mary and Sophia: “To My Daughter Mary, on her attaining her eleventh year. Written at Marazion, 15 March 1807” and “On the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, presented to my daughter Sophia on her taking the sacrament, Christmas Day 1813” (Fragments, 37-8, 89-92). Mary and Sophia Grenfell were baptised in 1797 and 1798 at Dulwich College, south London, as the daughters of John Maugham Granville Grenfell and his wife Sophia, thereby establishing that the poet was the man born in 1772 and not the John Grenfell born in 1767 (who was probably an infant death) given in Bibliotheca Cornubiensis. He died at Stoke Damerel, Plymouth, on 22 June 1816 after a trip to the West Indies, and was buried on 26 June. His wife, Sophia, later kept a school with her daughters at Torbay (Torquay) and died on 26 Mar. 1848 at Exmouth, aged 73. (ancestry.co.uk 12 Oct. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 26 Mar. 2024; Bibliotheca Cornubiensis 1: 189, 3: 1205; Exeter Flying Post 4 July 1816; Exeter and Plymouth Gazette 29 Dec. 1838; SJC, 1 Apr. 1848) AA