Author: Ker, Lewis
Biography:
KER, Lewis (b 1723: ESTC)
Official records are lacking, but he was born and educated in Ireland, where he had his medical training. The title-page of his one publication identifies him as M. B. (Bachelor of Medicine) and is dated from the College of Physicians in London. He gave up the practice of his profession early, however; Moore said, on grounds of health. The last record of his residence in Ireland dates from 1761 when he was the defendant in a financial dispute before the Court of Equity. By 1769 he was living in London as a private tutor of Latin and mathematics--notably, in that year, to another Irishman, Richard Brinsley Sheridan (q.v.), who had just left Harrow. He might be the Lewis Ker who secured a marriage license in London in 1772 to marry Alice Mercer, but confirmation is lacking. Nor have records been traced for his place and date of death, some time after 1787. The address to the reader in his book, which is dedicated to a Miss Baker, mentions that he had been an occasional poet for 47 years, i.e. since 1740. (ancestry.com 26 May 2021; ESTC; Thomas Moore, Memoirs of . . . Richard Brinsley Sheridan [1835]; findmypast.com 26 May 2021) HJ
Other Names:
- L. Ker