Author: SALKELD, Samuel
Biography:
SALKELD, Samuel (1794-1834: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 15 Nov. 1794 and baptised on 1 Jan. 1795 at Kendal, the son of Joseph Salkeld, a Wesleyan Methodist preacher and farmer, and his second wife Hannah Martin, who had married at Alton on 7 Mar. 1791. His father died in 1813 and his mother the following year. He married Mary Thompson on 24 May 1818 at Kendal, with his occupation given as Shoe Maker. They had five daughters. In 1820 he entered the Customs and Excise as an exciseman. He moved to Shropshire with his wife. She died there in 1827. He then married Hannah Richardson on 15 Nov. 1828 and went on to have a further two sons and a daughter. He printed at his own expense at Shrewsbury a volume of poetry entitled The Pleasures of Home, and Other Poems [nd]. Wordsworth subscribed for two copies. The internal evidence of a poem on his sister’s death (1826), his first wife’s death (1827), the Bristol Riots (1831) and the visit of Princess Victoria to Wales (1832) clearly indicate a post-1832 date. A newspaper advert and his death notice make the date of 1834 much more likely. The book was advertised in The Atlas on 5 Jan. 1834 and again in the Westmorland Gazette on 11 Jan. 1834 with the publication date Shrewsbury 1834. It can’t have been a posthumous 1834 printing because his death notice in the Westmorland Gazette on 19 Apr. 1834 records his death at Llangollen on 12 April, aged 40, adding that he was formerly of Kendal and “was the author of a volume of beautiful poems, &c. &c.” He was buried on 17 Apr. at Llangollen, aged 38 [sic]. (ancestry.co.uk 30 Dec. 2020; findmypast.co.uk 30 Dec. 2020; Westmorland Gazette 30 May 1818, 11 Jan. 1834, 19 Apr. 1834) AA