Author: Swan, Charles
Biography:
SWAN, Charles (1797-1838: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 1 Apr. 1797 at All Saints, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, the eldest son of Robert Swan, mercer and draper, and Mary Goodwin, who had married at Holy Trinity, Hull, on 10 June 1796. It is not known where he went to school but he proceeded to St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge (then Catharine Hall) where he matriculated in 1817 although no award of any degree is recorded. An advertisement for his poem Retribution (1820) records him as curate of Roos, Yorkshire. He also contributed a few poems to the Yorkshire Gazette. The volumes listed here never attracted much attention. Nor did his Sermons on Several Subjects (1823). He translated from Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Icelandic, including the medieval collection of Roman tales and legends, Gesta Romanorum (1824). His Journal of a Voyage up the Mediterranean (1826) was well received and is still consulted on aspects of Greek-Turkish events leading up to the 1830 revolt. For reasons unknown he had been appointed chaplain to HMS Cambrian which patrolled the Mediterranean around Smyrna to protect merchant shipping. He was later acting chaplain at Smyrna. While in Italy, he published a translation of Manzoni’s I Promessi Sposi as The Betrothed Lovers (Pisa 1828). On his return to England he was given the living of St. Michael’s, Stamford, Lincolnshire, by the Marquis of Exeter in 1831. He remained there until his death at Kirkby Underwood on 2 Mar. 1838. The newspaper death notice gave a brother as R[obert] H[udson] Swan of Leeds who would later point out that the 1844 edition of The Betrothed Lovers was unauthorised. The Gentleman’s Magazineobituary confuses him with Rev. Charles Swann (1772-1846). (ancestry.co.uk 7 Oct. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 7 Oct. 2023; Gordon Taylor, The Sea Chaplains [1978], 252-3, 514; Stamford Mercury 17 June 1796; Yorkshire Gazette 24 June 1820, 8 June 1822, 17 Aug. 1822, 15 Feb. 1823; Bristol Mirror 23 July 1831; Leeds Intelligencer 10 Mar. 1838; Bell’s Weekly Messenger 7 and 21 Dec. 1844; GM, April 1838, 439; GRO death certs.) AA
Other Names:
- C. Swan