Author: Reed, Thomas Robert
Biography:
REED, Thomas Robert (fl 1824)
There are two plausible candidates for the “entirely self-taught” poet Thomas Robert Reed of Hastings, Sussex, author of the self-published 1824 volume Hastings, a Rural Descriptive Poem. He might be the Thomas Reed who was born in 1803 at Chiddingly, Sussex, the son of Thomas Reed (1776-1819) and his wife, Olive Osborne (b 1783). In his 1832 will, he mentions his wife, Mary, his sons Samuel, Stephen, and John, and his daughter, Mary Binfield. To John he left his “working tools” and a supply of leather. Alternatively, the poet may be Thomas Reed, also of Chiddingly, whose father, also Thomas, a gunsmith, died at Hastings Barracks in 1819 (the parish register identifies him instead as a sailor). Almost all of Reed’s subscribers are from Hastings and its vicinity. There are no especially prominent names. The list does include a few aristocrats and members of the gentry: Sir William Ashburnham of Broomham Park; dowager Lady Nightengale of Fairlight; Lady St Orville, also of Fairlight; Lady John Keen; Sir Godfrey Webster of Battle Abbey; and the eldest son of James Bland Burgess (q.v.), Charles Montolieu Burgess. (ancestry.com 17 Dec. 2024) JC