Author: Webb, Francis
Biography:
WEBB, Francis (1735-1815: ODNB)
Francis Webb was born at Taunton, Somerset, on 18 Sept. 1735, the third son of Mary (Sweet) and John Webb, both natives of Taunton, who had married in 1717. Public records are limited, probably because they were dissenters. But they were well-off and well connected. He had his early education at the independent boarding school at Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and a private school in Bristol; then he went to the dissenting academy at Daventry, Northamptonshire, and to Taunton Academy. His first position as a General Baptist minister was at Honiton, Devon, from where he went on to be the pastor’s assistant and then the pastor of the chapel in Paul’s Alley, London (1758-66). On 31 Mar. 1764 he married Hannah Milner at Wareham, Dorset, but she died not long after--probably in Oct. 1765 when their infant daughter Hannah was buried at St. James, Clerkenwell, London. On 6 Jul. 1766 he married Hannah Rottenbury at St. James, Taunton. In the same year he published two volumes of sermons but gave up his pulpit and took up employment as a deputy searcher (customs inspector) at Gravesend, Kent, for £500 a year. With his second wife he had at least five children. After her death, probably in Somerset in 1778, he married Sarah Haines at Kinnersley, Herefordshire, on 31 Oct. 1779, and with her had one son. After retiring to Dorset in 1777, he pursued his literary career in earnest, publishing on spiritual and political controversies of the day as well as producing the volumes of verse listed here. A newspaper obituary in 1815 described his life as “long and diversified”(Taunton Courier)—which may be an understatement. As “Philalethes” he defended the authenticity of the Shakespeare forgeries of W. H. Ireland, q.v.; as an advocate for peace with France he served as secretary to the negotiator of the Treaty of Amiens in 1802; in religion his embrace of rationalism led him to Unitarian worship after 1802. He joined the Western Unitarian Society and chaired their meeting in Yeovil, Somerset, in 1814. He spent his final years in Barrington, Somerset, where he died on 2 Aug. 1815 and was buried in the churchyard of the parish church of the Blessed Virgin Mary on 7 Aug. He left an estate valued at under £2000. (ODNB 1 May 2024; ancestry.com 1 May 2024; findmypast.com 1 May 2024; Taunton Courier 10 Aug. 1815) HJ
Other Names:
- F. Webb