Richard Polwhele was a Cornish clergyman, poet and historian of Cornwall and Devon.
11 Facts About Richard Polwhele
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Richard Polwhele was born at Truro, Cornwall, and met literary luminaries Catharine Macaulay and Hannah More at an early age.
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Richard Polwhele went on to Christ Church, Oxford, continuing to write poetry, but left without taking a degree.
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On his wife's death in 1793, Polwhele was left with three children.
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From 1806, when he took up a curacy at Kenwyn, Truro, he was non-resident at Manaccan: Richard Polwhele angered Manaccan parishioners with his efforts to restore the church and vicarage.
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Richard Polwhele maintained epistolary exchanges with Samuel Badcock, Macaulay, William Cowper, Erasmus Darwin, and Anna Seward.
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When in Devon, Richard Polwhele had edited the two-volume work Poems Chiefly by Gentlemen of Devonshire and Cornwall for an Exeter literary society.
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Richard Polwhele had by this time begun the first of his two major county histories, the History of Devonshire.
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Richard Polwhele contributed to the Gentleman's Magazine and to the Anti-Jacobin Review.
10.
Richard Polwhele published sermons, theological essays for the Church Union Society, and attacks on Methodism.
11.
Richard Polwhele's name survives in Polwhele House School, an independent preparatory school two miles from Truro.