Author: Harrop, Edward Atkins
Biography:
HARROP, Edward Atkins (1769-1801: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 27 Oct. 1769, at St. Edmund the King and Martyr, Lombard Street, London, one of at least six children of Josiah Atkins, a warehouseman and silk-broker, and his wife, Mary Maria Cantrell, who had married in the same church in 1764. He was apprenticed in 1784 to his father who traded from George Yard, Lombard Street, and was frequently in difficulty, undergoing bankruptcy proceedings in 1781 which lasted until 1804. His father’s fortunes never improved and he later died, on 11 Apr. 1808, at Morden College, Blackheath, charitable almshouses for impoverished City of London merchants and traders. The experience of his father’s impoverished circumstances may possibly be reflected in several poems: "The Beggar," "Elegy," and "Elegy. Poverty." He dedicated the volume to a Miss Bowman and may have had expectations of marriage but they were not realised. Various members of her family and his own subscribed. He died in London and was buried at St. Paul’s Covent Garden on 12 Jan. 1801, aged 32. (ancestry.co.uk 28 Nov. 2021; GM Apr. 1808, 373) AA