Author: Hobson, Samuel
Biography:
HOBSON, Samuel (1797-1877: findmypast.com)
His only known literary publication is a collection of quite accomplished poems starting with a light-hearted story in octosyllabic couplets about the misfortunes of a vicar who attempted to restore a church in the countryside. References to the River Deane place it in Yorkshire and the volume was printed in Doncaster. The author’s Preface vouches for all the poems’ having been “founded on fact.” If the attribution of this anonymous work is correct, it was an early jeu d’esprit not repeated and not recorded in the otherwise serious professional output of a man who took a law degree, entered the church and served it faithfully for over forty years, and wrote many sermons, pamphlets, and pastoral guides. He was born in Kippax, Leeds, and was baptised at St. Peter’s, Leeds, on 10 Aug. 1797, the son of Leonard Hobson. His mother’s name and maiden name have not been found. He entered St. Catherine’s, Cambridge, as a Sizar in 1824, matric. 1828, LLB 1831. He was licensed to preach by the Bishop of Norwich and served first as stipendiary curate at Kirstead, Norfolk, in 1831, later as perpetual curate of Butley, Suffolk (1841-52), and finally as Vicar of Tuttington, Norfolk (1853-77). On 10 Sept. 1840 he married Mary Elizabeth Muskett (1805-56) at St. Clement’s, Norwich; they had at least three children, including two sons who also became clergymen. He died at the vicarage, where he lived with a daughter, on 17 Aug. 1877, and was buried in the church porch; there is a memorial plaque. (findmypast.com 14 Sept. 2022; ancestry.co. 14 Sept. 2022; CCEd 14 Sept. 2022; ACAD; Crockford’s Clerical Directory [1865], 309; Norfolk Chronicle 25 Aug. 1877)