Author: Rowe, Henry
Biography:
ROWE, Henry (1750-1819: Copsey)
He was baptised on 7 Mar. 1750 at St. George’s, Bloomsbury, London, the only child of Nathaniel Rowe (1714-77) of Eastworth House, Chertsey, Surrey, and his wife Isabella Nash (1722-51), who had married on 27 Jan. 1749 at St. James, Piccadilly, London. He was educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, but removed to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1768. From at least 1796, he styled himself LL.B. and CCEd gives Hertford College, Oxford, as a source of his qualifications, but this is not an Oxford degree and no record of any degree appears to exist in the registers. He married Harriet Bland on 9 Sept. 1774 at St. Peter’s, Chertsey. They had at least five children. Two sons entered the navy: John, a midshipman, who died of yellow fever in the West Indies in 1805, and Henry Nathaniel Rowe (q.v.) who rose to the rank of captain. He was curate at Little Warley, Essex, from 1777, but may also have been connected to St. Peter’s, Chertsey, where several children were baptised. By 1780 they had moved to Padnal Hall, Essex, and he is sometimes listed as of nearby Toby Prior. In 1790 he was ordained priest and appointed first Curate then Rector of Ringshall, Suffolk. He was frequently in debt and sometimes only left his house on Sundays to avoid creditors and arrest. He applied to the RLF for assistance in 1798 but was refused. His Poems (1796) had been very well subscribed and contained competent topographical poetry and imitations of Goldsmith and Johnson. His personal poem on his tribulations, financial and otherwise, “The Poet’s Lamentation,” is probably still of interest to modern readers but the old genre of Fables in Verse (1810) is unlikely to make a comeback. He died on 2 Sept. 1819 and was buried at Ringshall, aged 66 (sic). His wife died in 1834 and was buried at Chertsey, where there is still a memorial floorstone. (Copsey 1: 418; ancestry.co.uk 8 June 2022; CCEd 8 June 2022; N&Q 17 Nov. 1900, 390; RLF 1/65; Spenserians; Watkins, 301; GM Sept. 1819, 284; Norwich Mercury 27 Sept. 1834) AA