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Author: Watkins, Charles Frederick

Biography:

WATKINS, Charles Frederick (1795-1873: ODNB)

He was born on 16 Jan. 1795 at Corsley, Wiltshire, the son of the Rev. William Watkins (1747-1803), Rector of Port Eynon, Glamorgan, and his wife Jane Cradock Nowell (1750-1827), who had married in Cardiff in 1781 and went on to have at least eight children. His sisters Jane Penelope Watkins (1782-1860) and Harriet Watkins (1789-1865) (qq.v.) were also poets. On his father’s death in 1803, his mother was left with seven surviving children to support on a small church pension. However, she was well-connectedand managed to send Charles Frederick to Christ’s Hospital. After serving as a midshipman in the Navy 1810-15, he proceeded to Christ’s College, Cambridge in 1818 but left without taking a degree and qualified for the Church as a "ten year man." He was Curate at Downton, Wilts. (1818-19), Windsor (1820-21), West Grimstead and Plaiford, Wiltshire (1822-32). For the last forty years of his life, he was Vicar of All Saints and Chaplain to the Union Workhouse, Brixworth, Northants (1832-71). He died at the vicarage, Brixworth, on 15 Jul. 1873, leaving a small estate of under £600. He married three times: Matilda Opfferman (1805-24) in 1822 (one son and one daughter), Caroline Rebecca Aldridge (1799-1827) in 1825 (two daughters, neither of whom survived their first year), and Elizabeth Parsons (1812-86) in 1828 (eleven daughters, three sons). In addition to the works listed, he published The Human Hand and Other Poems (1852) and The Twins of Fame (1854) on Wellington and Napoleon, a topic long past its sell-by date, as was his A Treatise on the Leading Causes of Pleasure and Delight in the Human Mind (1841). His sermon, An Address to the Labouring Population (1831), denounced the violence of the Swing agricultural riots of 1830. He also opposed Trade Unions and Chartism. (ODNB 25 Jul. 2021; Wikipedia 25 Jul. 2021; ancestry.co.uk 25 Jul. 2021; CCEd 25 Jul. 2021; Oxford University and City Herald 11 May 1822, 26 Feb. 1825; Oxford Journal 9 Aug. 1828) AA

 

Other Names:

  • Charles Fred. Watkins
 

Books written (3):

Windsor/ London: Knight and Dredge/ John Warren, 1821
Salisbury/ London: printed by Brodie and Dowding/ C. and J. Rivington, [1829]