Author: Hollamby, John
Biography:
HOLLAMBY, John (1785-1856: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 5 June 1785 at Frant, Sussex, the son of William Hollamby, a miller, and his wife Mary Batchelor, who had married at Rochester, Kent, on 17 Aug. 1783. He received an elementary education from a schoolmistress at Bell’s Oak Green, and spent a few months at Mount Sion Chapel School, Tunbridge Wells. He then joined his father to work as a miller. He married Elizabeth Badcock (1786-1859) on 20 July 1809 at Ninfield, Sussex. After marriage, they moved to Hailsham where they would remain for the rest of their lives. By 1828 they had eight children and he was persuaded to publish his poetical pieces in the volume listed here. Its local reception was sufficiently good for him to publish a second edition with additional pieces. Both copies are rare. The poet Richard Lower (q.v.) of Chiddingly wrote to him praising his work. He contributed, often anonymously, verse and prose to various newspapers: Sussex Advertiser, Brighton Guardian, Gazette, Patriot, Hastings Iris. He remained a miller and as the author of a short biography (Mirror of Literature) noted, this meant that “he never experienced those vicissitudes which too frequently attend the humble followers of ‘The Muses.’” In his final years he worked as a turnpike-gate keeper. He went up to London seeking medical treatment for bladder calculus at Guy’s Hospital and died there on 26 May 1856. His wife died on 5 Dec. 1859 at Hailsham, where they are both buried. (ancestry.co.uk 26 May 2022; findmypast.co.uk 26 May 2022; The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction 36 [1840], 8; Thomas Geering, Our Sussex Parish [1925], 123-30; GRO death certs) AA