Author: Stratton, Nicholas
Biography:
STRATTON, Nicholas (1787-1831: findmypast.co.uk)
He was born on 4 Dec. 1787 at Abbots Ripton, Huntingdonshire, the son of “a rustic farmer” (Poems) but his parents’ names are not known. A number of Strattons, mostly from London, subscribed to his volume but their relation to him is also not known. He received an elementary education in reading and arithmetic. In 1806 he went to work as a clerk to a merchant but could not stand the “dull monotony of a Compting House” (Poems, xix) and returned home. His mostly juvenile poetry was harshly reviewed as “Fen Poetry” and apart from a few later poems, "The Deserted Farm" and "Bloomfield," his work is unremarkable. He presented a copy of his poems to John Clare (q.v.) who does not appear to have taken much notice of it. He published nothing further and nothing is known of his later life. He died, aged 44, virtually unknown and unnoticed, and was buried at Abbots Ripton on 22 June 1831. (findmypast.co.uk 23 Jan. 2021; Memoir/Introduction prefixed to Poems on Various Subjects [1824] xiii-xxvii; Cambridge Chronicle9 Jul. 1824; Cambridge Quarterly Review Jul. 1824, 266-81; Catalogue of the John Clare Collection [Northampton Public Library 1964], item 369, p. 32) AA