Author: Lane, William
Biography:
LANE, William (1744-1827: findmypast.co.uk)
He was probably born in 1744, the son of William Lane, a paper maker, and his wife Ruth Allin, who had married in High Wycombe on 27 Dec. 1742. He received little formal education, his father drank, and the family lived in poverty. In 1752, aged eight, he went to work for his father in a paper mill. Later he went to London where he worked for an uncle, making parts for milling machines. He then worked as a waiter for another uncle who was the landlord of The Lamb public house in Leadenhall Street. He left London in the 1760s and spent three years on the road working in mills up and down the country. He returned to Buckinghamshire and married Sarah Evererd on 24 Mar. 1771 at Wooburn. They settled at Flackwell-Heath, joined a Dissenting congregation, and went on to have at least ten children. Although he still continued working, in the 1790s he produced a number of volumes of verse which were surprisingly well-subscribed. However, he made three appeals to the Royal Literary Fund (1795-1825) and received the usual nominal amounts of £5 and £10. His seven volumes of verse consist of fairly commonplace topographical poetry (Cliffden, Clapham Common, River Mersey, High Wycombe), musings on biblical characters, and self-pitying poems on the poor poet’s fate. A topographical and biblical crossover poem, "The River Jordan," was admired at the time but modern readers will probably only appreciate his social-justice-seeking "On Monopoly." The poem "On being presented with a Proposal for a Publication of Poems, written by a Female Author, of Maidstone, Kent" almost certainly refers to Frances Greensted (q.v.). He wrote an equally maudlin autobiography, Fourscore Years of the Life of William Lane (1825). He died on 6 May 1827 and was buried in Bethel Chapel, Cores End, Wooburn. His wife had predeceased him but the exact date is not recorded in the register. Some of his poetry has been reprinted in Goodridge et al., eds., Eighteenth-Century English Labouring-Class Poets, 1700-1800 (2003) 3: 213-32. (findmypast.co.uk 9 Oct. 2020; RLF 1/51; Goodridge [August 2020]; Bridget Keegan, British Labouring-Class Nature Poetry 1780-1837 [2008] 80-93) AA