Author: Trenhaile, John
Biography:
TRENHAILE, John (1792-1867: ancestry.co.uk)
West-Country Poets (1896) follows Bibliotheca Cornubiensis (1878) and states that he was born on 31 Oct. 1792 at Truro, Cornwall, the son of William Trenhaile, but gives no further details. This may very well be correct but both entries are sketchy on his life and there is no matching record in the Cornwall Baptism registers. He may therefore have been the son of John Trenhaile and his wife Charity Pearce who was baptised at Kenwyn, Truro, on 26 Dec. 1792. It seems very likely he came from a family of modest means and nothing is known of his education. He became a scrivener or attorney’s clerk at Sole and Gill Solicitors in Devonport where he remained for fifty-two years. In the Preface to The Ocean (1837), he described himself as “a stipendiary clerk in an attorney’s office.” He married Ann Luke on 15 Apr. 1816, at Stoke Damerel, with his occupation given as scrivener. He then married Eliza Brenton on 17 Sept. 1836 at Stoke Damerel. No issue is recorded from either marriage. He died at 13 Home Park Buildings, Devonport, Devon, on 9 July 1867, leaving an estate of under £200. In addition to the work listed here, he also published The Ocean, in Six Cantos, and Other Poems (1837), Original Poetry for Children (1846), New Nursery Rhymes (1846), Poems for the People (1846), and Dolly Pentreath, and Other Humorous Cornish Tales (1854). (ancestry.co.uk 14 Aug. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 14 Aug. 2022; West Country Poets, 452; Bibliotheca Cornubiensis [1878], 2: 785-6; Western Times 1 Oct. 1836; Exeter and Plymouth Gazette 12 July 1867) AA