Henry Kirke White

Henry Kirke White (21 March 1785 – 19 October 1806) was an English poet and hymn-writer. He died at the young age of 21.

Life

White was born in Nottingham, the son of a butcher, a trade for which he was himself intended. However, he was greatly attracted to book-learning. By age seven, he was giving reading lessons (unbeknownst to the rest of the family, being offered after the household were abed) to a family servant. After being briefly apprenticed to a stocking-weaver, he was articled to a lawyer, George Coldham. While in this position, he excelled in studying Latin and Greek. When his health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, his employers gave him leave of absence for a month. He chose to live in Wilford at the crossroads, opposite Wilford House between 1804 and 1805. He drew inspiration for much of his poetry from Wilford and the surrounding area.

He wrote many of his poems in the gazebo which stands in the grounds of St Wilfrid's Church, Wilford. Here he wrote:-

Seeing the results of White's diligent studies and his deteriorating health, his master offered to release him from his contract if he had sufficient means to go to college. He received encouragement from Capel Lofft, the friend of Robert Bloomfield, and published in 1803, aged 17,Clifton Grove, a Sketch in Verse, with other Poems, dedicated to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. One of the better known ones was 'The Fair Maid of Clifton' and another was 'Clifton Grove' in which were the controversial lines:-

The book was violently attacked in the Monthly Review (February 1804), but White was rewarded with a kind letter from Robert Southey.