56 Facts About George Crabbe

George Crabbe was an English poet, surgeon and clergyman.

George Crabbe is best known for his early use of the realistic narrative form and his descriptions of middle and working-class life and people.

George Crabbe served as a clergyman in various capacities for the rest of his life, with Burke's continued help in securing these positions.

George Crabbe developed friendships with many of the great literary men of his day, including Sir Walter Scott, whom he visited in Edinburgh, and William Wordsworth and some of his fellow Lake Poets, who frequently visited Crabbe as his guests.

The elder George Crabbe had been a teacher at a village school in Orford, Suffolk, and later in Norton, near Loddon, Norfolk; he later became a tax collector for salt duties, a position that his own father had held.

George Crabbe showed an aptitude for books and learning at an early age.

George Crabbe was sent to school while still very young, and developed an interest in the stories and ballads that were popular among his neighbours.

George Crabbe's father owned a few books, and used to read passages from John Milton and from various 18th-century poets to his family.

George Crabbe subscribed to a country magazine called Martin's Philosophical Magazine, giving the "poet's corner" section to George.

The senior Crabbe had interests in the local fishing industry, and owned a fishing boat; he had contemplated raising his son George to be a seaman, but soon found that the boy was unsuited to such a career.

George Crabbe's father respected his son's interest in literature, and George Crabbe was sent first to a boarding-school at Bungay near his home, and a few years later to a more important school at Stowmarket, where he gained an understanding of mathematics and Latin, and a familiarity with the Latin classics.

George Crabbe's early reading included the works of William Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, who had a great influence on George's future works, Abraham Cowley, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser.

George Crabbe spent three years at Stowmarket before leaving school to find a physician to be apprenticed to, as medicine had been settled on as his future career.

George Crabbe called her "Mira", later referring to her by this name in some of his poems.

George Crabbe had intended to go on to London to study at a hospital, but he was forced through low finances to work for some time as a local warehouseman.

George Crabbe eventually travelled to London in 1777 to practise medicine, returning home in financial difficulty after a year.

George Crabbe continued to practise as a surgeon after returning to Aldeburgh, but as his surgical skills remained deficient, he attracted only the poorest patients, and his fees were small and undependable.

George Crabbe composed a number of works but was refused publication.

George Crabbe wrote several letters seeking patronage, but these were refused.

George Crabbe was able to publish a poem at this time entitled The Candidate, but it was badly received by critics.

George Crabbe continued to rack up debts that he had no way of paying, and his creditors pressed him.

George Crabbe completed his unfinished poems and revised others with the help of Burke's criticism.

George Crabbe had a good knowledge of Latin and an evident natural piety, and was well read in the scriptures.

George Crabbe returned to live in Aldeburgh with his sister and father, his mother having died in his absence.

George Crabbe was surprised to find that he was poorly treated by his fellow townsmen, who resented his rise in social class.

George Crabbe was treated with kindness by the Duke and Duchess, but his slightly unpolished manners and his position as a literary dependent made his relations with others in the Duke's house difficult, especially the servants.

George Crabbe was able to keep up his friendships with Burke, Reynolds, and others during the Duke's occasional visits to London.

George Crabbe visited the theatre, and was impressed with the actresses Sarah Siddons and Dorothea Jordan.

Around this time it was decided that, as Chaplain to a noble family, George Crabbe was in need of a college degree, and his name was entered on the boards of Trinity College, Cambridge, through the influence of Bishop Watson of Llandaff, so that George Crabbe could obtain a degree without residence.

The young couple stayed on at Belvoir for nearly another eighteen months before George Crabbe accepted a vacant curacy in the neighbourhood, that of Stathern in Leicestershire, where George Crabbe and his wife moved in 1785.

George Crabbe later told his children that his four years at Stathern were the happiest of his life.

George Crabbe's connection with the two livings lasted for over 25 years, but during 13 of these years he was a non-resident.

In 1792, through the death of one of Sarah's relations and soon after of her older sister, the George Crabbe family came into possession of an estate in Parham in Suffolk, which removed all of their financial worries.

The former owner of the estate had been very popular for his hospitality, while George Crabbe's lifestyle was much more quiet and private.

George Crabbe, a devoted husband, tended her with exemplary care until her death in 1813.

George Crabbe first saw it in a bookseller's shop in Ipswich, read it nearly through while standing at the counter, and pronounced that a new and great poet had appeared.

In October 1805, George Crabbe returned with his wife and two sons to the parsonage at Muston.

George Crabbe had been absent for nearly 13 years, of which four had been spent at Parham, five at Great Glemham, and four at Rendham.

In September 1807, George Crabbe published a new volume of poems.

In 1809 George Crabbe sent a copy of his poems in their fourth edition to Walter Scott, who acknowledged them in a friendly reply.

The success of The Parish Register in 1807 encouraged George Crabbe to proceed with a far longer poem, which he had been working on for several years.

George Crabbe did have his two sons, George and John, with him; they had both passed through Cambridge, one at Trinity and the other at Caius, and were now clergymen themselves, each holding a curacy in the neighbourhood, enabling them to live under the parental roof, but Mrs Crabbe's health was now very poor, and Crabbe had no daughter or female relative at home to help him with her care.

George Crabbe was able to visit Dudley North and some of his other old friends, and to visit and help the poor and distressed, remembering his own want and misery in the great city thirty years earlier.

George Crabbe rallied and returned to the duties of his parish.

George Crabbe remained at Trowbridge for the rest of his life.

In 1817, on the recommendation of Rogers, George Crabbe stayed in London from the middle of June to the end of July in order to enjoy the literary society of the capital.

In June 1819, George Crabbe published his collection Tales of the Hall.

The last 13 years of George Crabbe's life were spent at Trowbridge, varied by occasional visits among his friends at Bath and the surrounding neighbourhood, and by yearly visits to his friend Samuel Hoare Jr in Hampstead.

Around 1820 George Crabbe began suffering from frequent severe attacks of neuralgia, and this illness, together with his age, made him less and less able to travel to London.

George Crabbe kept this promise during George IV's visit to Edinburgh, in the course of which the King met Scott and the poet was given a wine glass from which the King had drunk.

Later in 1822, George Crabbe was invited to spend Christmas at Belvoir Castle, but was unable to make the trip because of the winter weather.

George Crabbe continued to visit at Hampstead throughout the 1820s, often meeting the writer Joanna Baillie and her sister Agnes.

George Crabbe was able to preach twice for his son, who congratulated him on the power of his voice, and other encouraging signs of strength.

George Crabbe died on 3 February 1832, with his two sons and his faithful nurse by his side.

George Crabbe's poetry was predominantly in the form of heroic couplets, and has been described as unsentimental in its depiction of provincial life and society.

George Crabbe published an essay on the Natural History of the Vale of Belvoir in John Nichols's, Bibliotheca Topographia Britannica, VIII, Antiquities in Leicestershire, 1790.