June 16th Henry Sewell Stokes (Birth)
     

Gibraltar – born Henry Sewell Stokes came to England in 1815 and was a pupil at the Rev. William Giles’ Baptist School where a classmate was Charles Dickens.

In 1823, he returned to Gibraltar, where his father was a lawyer and government official and studied English and Foreign mercantile law for three years, becoming fluent in French, Spanish and Italian.

Stokes served his articles in Tavistock and then became a practising lawyer in Truro where, over 25 years, he served as Mayor, Town Clerk and then as ‘Clerk for the Peace of the County of Cornwall’ in which role he was responsible for the administration of all Cornish courts. 

He was also editor of the ‘Cornish Guardian and Western Chronicle’ which later merged with ‘The West Briton’.
Stokes was a prolific poet and writer and first came to notice, in 1836, with “The Vale of Lanherne and Other Poems’ which was illustrated by his wife, Louisa Rachel Evans, daughter of the Vicar of Tavistock.

Numerous poems demonstrated his love of Cornwall and he became a friend of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, one of whose most famous poems was ‘The Gallants of Fowey’.

 

 

 

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