Author: Williams, Joseph
Biography:
WILLIAMS, Joseph (c. 1741-85: findmypast.com)
Pseudonym Clio
His name is a common one but the burial record that includes his pseudonym “Clio” makes a positive identification possible: he was the Joseph Williams, aged 44, buried at St. Alkmund’s, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, on 24 Sept. 1785. As “Clio” (the Muse of History) in 1774 he had published The Converted Indian, about an American convert of the Methodist missionary George Whitefield. He dedicated it to Thomas Powys, Esq., praising his “zeal for Religion.” Clio’s second collection, however, was posthumous, lovingly edited by “E. T.” (so far unidentified) with an introductory “Elegiac Poem” that predicts immortality for Williams’s work: “Babes yet unborn shall lisp his melting Songs.” The tenor of the collection is decidedly evangelical but the author apparently stayed within the bounds of the Anglican church. One of the poems is about “St. Alkmond’s [sic] Ghost.” Another is an elegy on the unexpected death of his original patron Thomas Powys—presumably the Thomas Powys of Berwick House, Berwick, Shropshire, whose will was proved on 26 Jan. 1775. Public records offer a few candidates for Williams, the most likely being the son of Mary and William Birch Williams baptised at Shrewsbury on 22 May 1743. It is not clear whether he married or not. (findmypast.com 15 June 2024; ancestry.com 15 June 2024) HJ