Author: Warner, Richard
Biography:
WARNER, Richard (1763-1857: ODNB)
Pseudonyms Peter Paul Pallet, Timothy Goosequill
He was born on 19 Oct. 1763 at St. Marylebone, Westminster, the only son of Richard Warner and Rebecca (Sawyer) Pastorini, widow, who had married in 1761. He was educated at a London boarding-school and Christchurch Grammar School but failed to secure a place at Winchester, regarded as the favoured route to New College, Oxford, and clerical preferment. He worked as an attorney’s clerk for several years before going to St. Mary’s Hall, Oxford (matric. 1787) but took no degree. He was ordained in 1789 and became curate to William Gilpin (1724-1804), writer on the picturesque, at Boldre, Hampshire. He served as curate of Fawley, Hampshire (1793-4), and left to become briefly curate at All Saints, Bath (1794), before securing the living of St. James, Bath (1795-1817). After his father’s death in 1799, his mother and two invalid sisters lived with him. He never advanced in the church, probably due to his liberal politics and courting of controversy, particularly with his anti-war sermon, War Inconsistent with Christianity (1804). However, he acquired other small livings amongst which were Great Chatfield (1809) and St. Leonard’s Chelwood, Somerset (1828). He was active in the Bath Infirmary and Dispensary, Sunday school education, and various local charities. His voluminous writings include his topographical and antiquarian works, various walking tours and guides, a Gothic novel, extensive writings on Bath, over 175 sermons, religious tracts, and the autobiographical Literary Recollections (1830). There is a fairly complete list of his writings in DNB. He married Ann Pearson (1779-1865) on 5 Oct. 1801, at Tettenhall Regis, Staffordshire. They had two daughters and a son. Only his eldest daughter, Elizabeth Sophia, survived him. He retired in 1848. He died on 27 July 1857, aged 93, at Widcombe Cottage, Chelwood, and was buried at St. Leonard’s. In addition to the works listed here, he printed further poetry in an appendix to Literary Recollections (1830), Nugae Poeticae: Solitary Musings by an Aged Man (1847) and Diary of a Retired Country Parson (1848--no copy located). (ODNB 8 Aug. 2023; DNB; ancestry.co.uk 8 Aug. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 8 Aug. 2023; CCEd 8 Aug. 2023; GM Sept. 1857, 345; Diane Brunning, Richard Warner: A Curate in the History of Bath, historyofbath.org; Catalogue of . . . Rev. Philip Bliss, [Sotheby’s 1858] 324, item 4475) AA
Other Names:
- R. Warner