Author: Woolsey, Robert
Biography:
WOOLSEY, Robert (fl 1790-1819)
Woolsey is an interesting, versatile, but elusive figure. Watkins provides the most helpful information about him but has nothing to say about his origins or parentage. He might have been born at Kirstead Green, Norfolk, on 24 Nov. 1764, the son of Mary (Beaumont) and Robert Woolsey; if so, he died at Helveston, Norfolk, on 12 May 1825 and was buried on 14 May at Rockland St. Mary with Hellington. The Helveston man is on record as the owner of sheep and pigs in 1817-23; the writer identified himself as “Gent.” But he could have been a gentleman farmer as well as an attorney and writer. Few if any other British or Irish names match his circumstances. Woolsey started his working life as an attorney in London but turned from the law to run an academy in Hampstead; when that failed, he went back to the law. He published on some legal issues, on politics, on economics, and on astronomy. It may have been his first book, a response to Burke entitled Reflections upon Reflections (1790), that attracted the attention of George Wright (c. 1770-1812), later Sir George Wright, 2nd and last of the Wright baronets of Venice. The 1st baronet, Sir James (1730-1804) had been the British ambassador to Venice. The family seat was Ray House, Woodford, Essex. George Wright became Woolsey’s patron and paid for the production—which Watkins calls “showy”--of his Celestial Companion in 1802. Lady Wright, whose death later that year prompted Woolsey’s only published poem, was Catherine, wife of the first and mother of the second baronet. Later publications include warnings about the spread of paper currency; an abstract of the doctrines of Swedenborg; and finally a summary of the Doctrine and Practice of the Attachments in the Mayor’s Court, London (1819). No record of marriage or children has been found. (ancestry.com 16 July 2024; findmypast.com 16 July 2024; Watkins, 398; Allibone 3: 2836; MR 40 [1802], 215-16; “Wright Baronets,” Wikipedia 16 July 2024) HJ
Other Names:
- R. Woolsey