Author: Strong, Charles
Biography:
STRONG, Charles (1784-1864: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 4 May 1784 and baptised at St. Peter’s, Tiverton, Devon, on 3 Aug. 1791, the youngest of five children of Richard Strong, apothecary, and his wife Sarah Manley, who had married at Taunton, Somerset, in 1773. He was educated at Blundell’s School, Tiverton, and Wadham College, Oxford (matric. 1801, BA 1805, MA 1810, Hody Greek Exhibitioner 1805-10, Fellow 1811-12; Select Preacher 1816). He was ordained deacon (1807) and priest (1811) and was rector of Broughton Gifford, Wiltshire 1811-1848. At Oxford he showed the manuscript poems of Janetta Philipps (q.v.), to whom he was possibly related, to Shelley (q.v.) who immediately offered to have them printed at his own expense and was active in raising subscribers. Strong and Philipps may have remained in contact. In the 1820s and 1830s, he wrote several sonnets at Bolham, Devon, where she is recorded as a governess in the 1841 census. He married Ann Margretta Crosse on 17 Feb. 1814, at her parish of Pawlett, Somerset. Her father, Rev. Edward Crosse, was the vicar there, and her uncle was the miniature painter, Richard Crosse. A son, Charles Edward Strong, was born at Locking, Somerset, later that year. The family lived for many years at Dawlish on the Devon coast. Charles Strong died there on 27 Jan. 1864 and was buried at St. Gregory the Great, where there is a memorial tomb to him and his wife, who had died the previous year. He left an estate of around £7000 to his son. In addition to the works listed here, he published in the annuals Forget-Me-Not and Amulet (1828-31). An expanded edition of Sonnets appeared in 1862 and included sonnets by his friend, Rev. Carrington Ley, signed “L.C.” (ancestry.co.uk 26 May 2024; findmypast.co.uk 26 May 2024; R. B. Gardiner, The Registers of Wadham College, Oxford. Part II. From 1719-1871 [1895], 220; CCEd 26 May 2024; Boase 3: 802; OUCH 5 Mar. 1814; Western Times 28 Apr. 1863, 29 Jan. 1864; GM June 1863, 805 and Mar. 1864, 398; GRO death cert.; West Country Poets, 431; Boyle 277) AA