William Thompson (poet, born circa 1712)

William Thompson ( 1712 – 1766) was an 18th-century English poet and Anglican priest.

Life William Thompson was the son of Rev. Francis Thompson, vicar of Brough in Westmoreland, NW England, who died in 1735; William's date of birth is not known.Richard Alfred Davenport, "The Life of William Thompson", in The British Poets, Vol. LVI. Chiswick, 1822; pg. 7. William Thompson studied at Queen's College, Oxford, which his father had also attended, and graduated with a Master of Arts in 1738, afterwards becoming a fellow of the college.Davenport, "The Life of William Thompson", pp. 8–9.

Thompson became rector of Hampton Poyle with South Weston in Oxfordshire. He published his collected poems in two volumes in 1757.Davenport, "The Life of William Thompson", pg. 10.

Work He is best known for the long poem Sickness (1746), which discusses various illnesses including melancholy, fever, consumption, and variola.Davenport, "The Life of William Thompson," pp. 12–13. Other poems include Epithalamium, Nativity, and Hymn to May, as well as a panegyric to Alexander Pope.Davenport, "The Life of William Thompson", pg. 14.

Footnotes

External links William Thompson at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)