Author: Stewart, John
Biography:
STEWART, John (1778-1854: ancestry.com)
The dedications to his various works are revealing. Apart from The Resurrection (1808), which is dedicated “to the honour and glory of Jesus Christ,” they are all associated with the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. The Pleasures of Love and Genevieve are dedicated to the Marquis of Downshire (Arthur B. S. T. Hill, 1788-1845) and Alhagranza, with its historical Preface and Notes, to Lady Cecilia La Touche (c. 1769-1848, née Leeson, daughter of the Earl of Milltown). Reviews were mixed but Stewart had what O’Donoghue describes as a “somewhat high reputation” as a poet and was anthologised in the Cork collection Harmonica, q.v. He was baptised in Belfast on 18 Dec. 1778, the son of Mary (McDowell) and James Stewart. His first career was as a physician in Belfast. He was a serving member of the Irish army medical staff by 8 July 1811 when he married Jane McDougall at St. Swithin’s Walcot, Bath, Somerset. They went on to have six children, one of whom died in infancy. He served at St. Helena in 1819 but returned to Ireland and left the army on half-pay in 1821. He was then ordained as deacon (1822) and priest (1823) in Norfolk, England, qualifying as “literate,” i.e. without a university degree. (Some of the death notices identify him as MA, but confirmation is lacking.) The best known of his later works was Bible Gems, a prose work in two volumes (1827). After serving congregations at Sporle with Palgrave and Syderstone, he became rector of Shimpling in 1850. There he died on 3 Aug. 1854 and there he was buried, leaving effects valued at £50. His widow moved to Lancashire to live with the family of their son William, and died in 1880 or 1881. (ancestry.com 4 Dec. 2024, 27 Mar. 2025; findmypast.com 4 Dec. 2024; CCEd 27 Mar. 2025; O’Donoghue; Belfast Newsletter 22 Nov. 1805; ILN 9 Feb. 1850; Norwich Mercury 12 Aug. 1854) HJ, JC