Richard Polwhele | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1760-03-12)12 March 1760 |
| Died | 23 January 1838(1838-01-23) (aged 78) Truro, Cornwall, England |
| Occupation | Clergyman |
| Known for | Historian and poet |
| Spouses |
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| Children | 3 |
| Parent | Robert Blight |
Richard Polwhele (6 January 1760 – 12 March 1838) was aCornishclergyman,poet and historian ofCornwall andDevon.
Richard Polwhele's ancestors long held the manor ofTreworgan, 4 3/4 miles south-east ofTruro in Cornwall, which family bore as arms:Sable, a saltire engrailed ermine.[1] He was born at Truro,Cornwall, and met literary luminariesCatharine Macaulay andHannah More at an early age. He was educated atTruro Grammar School, where he precociously publishedThe Fate of Llewellyn. He went on toChrist Church, Oxford, continuing to write poetry, but left without taking a degree. In 1782 he was ordained a curate, married Loveday Warren, and moved to a curacy atKenton, Devon. On his wife's death in 1793, Polwhele was left with three children. Later that year he married Mary Tyrrell, briefly taking up a curacy atExmouth before being appointed to the small living ofManaccan in Cornwall in 1794. From 1806, when he took up a curacy at Kenwyn, Truro, he was non-resident at Manaccan: Polwhele angered Manaccan parishioners with his efforts to restore the church and vicarage. He maintained epistolary exchanges withSamuel Badcock, Macaulay,William Cowper,Erasmus Darwin, andAnna Seward.[2]
When in Devon, Polwhele had edited the two-volume workPoems Chiefly by Gentlemen of Devonshire and Cornwall (1792) for an Exeter literary society. However,Essays by a Society of Gentlemen at Exeter (1796) caused a rift between Polwhele and other society members. Polwhele had by this time begun the first of his two majorcounty histories, theHistory of Devonshire. This appeared in 3 volumes, 1793–1806, but his coverage was uneven and subscribers deserted.[3] His seven-volumeHistory of Cornwall appeared 1803–1808, with a new edition in 1816.[2]
Polwhele's volumes of poetry includedThe Art of Eloquence, a didactic poem (1785),The Idylls, Epigrams, and Fragments of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, with the elegies of Tyrtaeus (1786),The English Orator (1796),Influence of Local Attachment (1796), andPoetic Trifles (1796). However,The Unsex'd Females, a Poem (1798), a defensive reaction to women's literary self-assertion, is today perhaps Polwhele's most notorious poetic production: in the poemHannah More is Christ toMary Wollstonecraft's Satan.
Polwhele contributed to theGentleman's Magazine and (1799–1805) to theAnti-Jacobin Review. He published sermons, theological essays for theChurch Union Society, and attacks onMethodism (although he befriended his main Methodist antagonistSamuel Drew). At the end of his life, after retiring to hismanor house ofPolwhele, he worked to produceTraditions and Recollections (two volumes, 1826) andBiographical Sketches (three volumes, 1831).[2]
He died in Truro on 12 March 1838. He was buried atSt Clement, Cornwall.[2]
His name survives inPolwhele House School, an independentpreparatory school two miles from Truro.
