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Author: Toulmin, George Hopper

Biography:

TOULMIN, George Hopper (c. 1780-1842: ancestry.co.uk)

He was born around 1780, the son of William Toulmin (1739-1800) and Sarah Clarke (1741-1815), who had married in at St. John’s, Hackney, London, on 11 Aug. 1761. The Toulmins were a large extended family in Somerset and Hackney with strong Unitarian connections but his parents did not register his birth at Dr. Williams’ Library. Nothing is known of his education but there was a wide range of dissenting academy and school options together with private tuition possibilities in Hackney. His elder brother, William Wilton Toulmin (1767-1820), was apprenticed to an attorney and later practised law. One of his brother’s daughters was Camilla Dufour Toulmin (later Crosland) (1812-95), poet and memoirist. George Hopper Toulmin entered the navy in 1800 and served for thirty years as a purser. He was still on the Navy List in 1841 but was probably pensioned and was recorded living at Park Street, Islington, London, in the 1841 census. He died on 4 July 1842, aged 62, and was buried at the New Gravel Pit churchyard (Unitarian), Paradise Place, Hackney, on 10 July, where several other members of the family are also buried. He does not appear to have married. His only known work, Illustrations of the Affections(1819), listed here, was printed in Hackney and its lead poem with varied overseas scenes, together with three sonnets on foreign locations, may reflect his experiences as a purser. He is sometimes confused with George Hoggart Toulmin (1754-1817), physician and geological controversialist. The attribution is speculative but there are no other obvious candidates. (ancestry.co.uk 22 Aug. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 22 Aug. 2023; Joseph Jackson Edward, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica [1884], 4: 435-8; Monthly Magazine Nov. 1818, 352; Colburn’s United Service Magazine Aug. 1842, 600; GM July 1842, 107; GRO death cert.) AA

 

Other Names:

  • G. H. Toulmin
 

Books written (1):

London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Browne [Brown], 1819