Author: POOLEY, John
Biography:
POOLEY, John (b 1800: findmypast.com)
Pooley, a farm labourer in Northamptonshire, took Burns and Clare (qq.v.) as models and published two collections of verse by subscription in 1825 and 1838. In a preface to the first he describes himself as “unversed in ancient lore, and most unacquainted with books,” and in the second, Blackland Farm, he affirms that the long title poem had been composed for “his own amusement during the labours of the field.” He was baptised on 7 Sept. 1800 at Kelmarsh, Northamptonshire, son of Thomas and Elizabeth Pooley. He next appears in the public record in the Census of 1841, by which time, still resident at Kelmarsh, he was living with a family named Walpole who were presumably his employers. Some of his poems had appeared in periodicals before publication in book form. John Clare complained in 1825 that a man named Pooley—“a very dull fooley”—had sent him a verse letter that cost him tenpence in postage that he could not afford. The Census does not include a wife and, although there are a few possibilities, it seems most probable that he did not marry. No record of his death has yet been found but his name does not appear in the Census of 1851 and it therefore seems likely that he died before then. (findmypast.com 30 Oct. 2023; ancestry.com 30 Oct. 2023; Antiquates “Firsts London” catalogue [2023] # 96; Goodridge) HJ