Author: Rhodes, Ebenezer
Biography:
RHODES, Ebenezer (1762-1839: ODNB)
He was born at Masbrough, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, in 1762 and baptised at Nether Chapel, Norfolk Street, Sheffield (Independent) on 11 Apr. 1763, one of at least eight children of John Rhodes (1722-86), a potter who worked in the ironworks of Messrs Walker, and his wife Sarah Walker (1729-77) who was possibly related to his father’s employers. They had married in 1751. He was apprenticed to a Sheffield scissorsmith in February 1777 for seven years and then took up the trade of cutler. He married Mary Hill (1763-1845) on 13 May 1785 at Sheffield Cathedral. They had at least six daughters and two sons, not all of whom survived infancy. He was a member of the debating society, The Society of the Friends of Literature, and acquired a reputation as a Jacobin. He formed early friendships with the poets James Montgomery and William Brownell (qq.v.) and the sculptor and artist Francis Leggatt Chantrey. He was included in the Cambridge Quarterly Review discussion of Sheffield Poets in 1824. His play Alfred (1789) was not very well received and he was always better known for his topographical works: Peak Scenery, or Excursions in Derbyshire (1824) (with drawings by Chantrey), Yorkshire Scenery (1826), The Palace of the Peak, or, Chatsworth in 1831 (1831), The Derbyshire Tourist’s Guide (1837). However, none of these works was profitable and when his cutlery business failed, he was declared bankrupt in 1828 and his residence, warehouse, and workshop were sold off the following year. In his final years he received assistance from the Duke of Devonshire, Chantrey, Montgomery, and John Bailey. He died, aged 77, on 16 Dec. 1839 at his residence in Victoria Street, Sheffield, and was buried in Sheffield Cathedral. His wife, Mary Rhodes, died in 1845 and was helped by Montgomery and Bailey in her final years. (ODNB 28 Jan. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 28 Jan. 2023; [Sheffield Poetry] Cambridge Quarterly Review 2:1 [Sept. 1824], 78-108; John Holland, “Memoir of Ebenezer Rhodes,” The Reliquary Jan. 1863, 121-34; Newsam, 112-13; Sheffield Independent 13 Sept. 1828, 23 May 1829; Yorkshire Gazette 21 Dec. 1839) AA