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Author: Rozzell, Charles

Biography:

ROZZELL, Charles (1754-92: Patrick)

He was  born on 21 Sept. 1754, the eldest surviving son of Irish parents, John Rozzell, framework-knitter, and Judith Kervin, of Newark, Leicester, who had married at St. Mary de Castro, Leicester, on 20 Jan. 1750. He was initially a framework-knitter like his father but later became a schoolteacher like his brother William Rozzell (q.v.). He married Julian Wastell on 3 Apr. 1775 at St. Mary de Castro, Leicester, where his friend, the antiquarian and schoolmaster Rev. William Bickerstaffe (1728-89), performed the service. A son Charles Horatius was baptised the following month, died a year later, and was the subject of an Elegy. He was a frequent contributor to the Leicester Journal. A number of poems were printed separately in his lifetime: Youth (1779), The Compromise II (1780), Prudence (1783), and Navigation: A Pastoral (1789). The original printings appear not to have survived but they were mostly reprinted in the posthumous Poems (1805). Nichols records that Richard Weston (1733-1806), Secretary of the Leicester Agricultural Society, intended to publish a miscellany, Leicesteriana, and had collected nearly all Rozzell’s works (History 1 ii 509-10). It was never published and the whereabouts of Weston’s manuscripts and library is as yet unknown. He was more prolific as a poet and more active politically than his brother and became known as the "Bard of Leicester." His political poetry, particularly the Revolution Odes (commemorating 1688) allied him to radicals and he was regarded with suspicion during the French Revolution. He was imprisoned at least once – possibly due more to his irascible temper, fondness for drink, and clashes with local dignitaries than to his politics. His poems on cricket and other local events are fresh and lively. He died on 25 Jul. 1792 and was buried in St. Mary de Castro churchyard where there is still a gravestone. (findmypast.co.uk 20 Jun. 2021; ancestry.co.uk 20 Jun. 2021; Leicester Journal 20 Mar. 1779, 8 Mar. 1783; Leicester Herald 27 Jul. 1792; GM Aug. 1792, 767;  John Nichols, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester [1815]; Duncan Patrick, The Life and Times of Charles Rozzell 1754-1792 [2014]) AA

 

Books written (1):

Leicester: [no publisher: printed by John Ireland], 1805