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Britain Unlimited covers
250 Great British people and what made them famous
Who was Thomas Gray?
A Poet.
Date and Place of Birth:
26th December 1716, Cornhill, London, England.
Family Background:
Sole survivor of twelve children. His father
Philip was and scrivener and known to be violent. His mother Dorothy
ran a millinery business with her sister Mary in order to educate
him.
Education:
Eton College. (Robert Antrobus his uncle was
assistant master there). Peterhouse and Kings Colleges, Cambridge.
Chronology/Biography of Thomas Gray:
1725: Horace Walpole
became one of his closest friends at Eton.
1734: First poem
written "Lines Spoken by John Dennis at the Devil Tavern".
1735: Gray admitted
to the Inner Temple.
1736: His "Hymeneal"
on the marriage of the Prince of Wales published in the Cambridge.
1738: Left Cambridge
without having taken a degree, intending to read for the Bar at
the Inner Temple in London.
1739: Went on the
Grand Tour with Horace Walpole.
1740: Visits Rome,
Naples and Florence. Began writing "De Principiis Cogitand"
in Florence.
1741: Left Florence
for Venice. Returned to England alone after a quarrel with Walpole
via Padua, Verona, Milan, and Paris. His father died, leaving the
family poor. Gray begins writing his only tragedy, "Agrippina".
1742: Planned to
study law in London but returns to Peterhouse in Cambridge
1743: Achieves
a Bachelor of Laws degree.
1744: Resides in
Cambridge but visits to Stoke and London during the summer.
1745: Re-united
with Horace Walpole.
1746: Walpole moves
to an apartment in WIndsor Castle as Gray shows him some of his
poetry including "lines written in a Country Churchyard".
1748: Makes friends
with the Reverend William Mason who was to become Gray's Literary
Executor.
1749: Death of Mary
Antrobus.
1750: Completes
the "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" at Stoke Poges.
Writes a "A Long Story" for Lady Cobham at Stoke Poges.
Met Henrietta Jane Speed.
1751: "Elegy
Written in a Country Churchyard" published anonymously by Dodsley.
1753: Death of his
mother at Stoke Poges.
1754: Tours Northamptonshire
and Warwickshire.
1755: Declined an
offer by the Earl of Bristol to become his secretary.
1756: Moves from
Peterhouse to Pembroke Hall Cambridge.
1757: "The
Progress of Poesy" and "The Bard" are published by
Walpole at his new Strawberry Hill press. Refuses the post of Poet
Laureate.
1759: Takes lodgings
in Southampton Row, London so that he can study at the British Museum
which was newly opened.
1760: Visited Henrietta
Jane Speed Mrs Jennings house at Shiplake, in Oxfordshire.
1761: Takes an interest
in early Nordic and Welsh poetry. Henrietta Jane Speed marries Baron
de la Perriere.Gray returns from London to Pembroke Hall.
1762: Tours York
and Durham.
1764: Gray penned
the satire "The Candidate", about the Earl of Sandwich's
application for the High Stewardship of Cambridge University.
1765: Again visits
York and Durham. Makes a tour of the Scottish Highlands with Lord
Strathmore. Meets James Beattie at Glamis Castle.
1767: Stays at Durham,
Hartlepool, York and makes his first visit to the Lake District.
1768:
Appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge,
and made a Fellow of Pembroke College. Visits York, Durham, and
the Lakes once more.
Written Works:
- 1742: Gray
wrote the "Ode on the Spring", which he sent to Richard
West on 3rd June.
“Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”.
- 1747: "Ode
on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes"
- 1748: "The
Alliance of Education and Government".
- 1750: "A
Long Story"
- 1751: “Elegy Written
in a Country Churchyard”. (published)
- 1752: "The Progress of Poesy".
- 1753: “Hymn
to Adversity”.
- 1757:
“Odes by Mr. Gray”.
- 1758: "Epitaph
on a Child"
- 1761: "The
Fatal Sisters", "The Descent of Odin"
- 1768:
“Poems by Mr. Gray”.
- 1769:
“Installation Ode”. "Ode for Music".
- 1775:
“Poems”.
Marriage:
Never married.
Places of Interest:
BERKSHIRE:
Eton College.
Date and Place of Death:
30th July 1771, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
of gout.
Age at Death:
54.
Site of Grave:
St. Giles Churchyard, Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire,
England beside his mother and aunt.
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