Author: Merry, John
Biography:
MERRY, John (1756-1821: ancestry.co.uk)
He was probably born in 1756 although no record of baptism has been traced and his parents are therefore not known. There appear to have been various intermarriages among the Merry, Clark(e), and Barber families. Nothing is known of his education. He traded as a miller and flour vendor at Moulton Mills, Moulton, Northamptonshire, and this may have been the family business. He married Alice Clarke Barber on 20 July 1784 at St. Peter and St. Paul, Moulton. They went on to have five children. He retired from the business in Mar. 1819, possibly due to ill health, and went to live in Northampton where he died, aged 65, on 12 Sept. 1821. He was buried on 16 Sept. at Moulton. His wife, Alice, died on 20 Sept. 1824 in Northampton and was also buried at Moulton. His verse was posthumously published by their son, Clark Barber Merry (1786-1868), printer and bookseller of Bedford. The first poem in the collection, “The Bard of Moulton Mill,” became his sobriquet and seems to have been first used by the local historian John Cole in 1839. Other poems include commemorations of the death of Elizabeth, the wife of his eldest son James Clark Merry (1785-1867), in 1813; a fire which destroyed a Quaker Meeting House; gossiping in church; a visit to Abington Mill; and various other occasional pieces. (ancestry.co.uk 29 Mar. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 29 Mar. 2023; Northampton Mercury 13 Mar. 1819, 21 Sept. 1821, 25 Sept. 1824; John Cole, Popular Biography of Northamptonshire [1839], 116; Trevor Hold, ed., A Northamptonshire Garland [1989], 115-16; Johnson, item 604) AA
Other Names:
- J. Merry