Henry Headley

Henry Headley (1765–1788) was an English poet and critic.

Life Baptised at Irstead, Norfolk, 27 April 1765, he was only son of Henry Headley, rector of that parish to 1768, and then vicar of North Walsham to his death on 6 October 1785, at the age of 57; his mother, Mary Anne Barchard, married (on 21 September 1789), after her first husband's death, Anthony Taylor of Gorleston, Great Yarmouth, and died 13 October 1818, at age 85. His sister Elizabeth married Woodbine Parish (1768–1848), and was mother of Sir Woodbine Parish.

Headley was one of Samuel Parr's pupils at Colchester grammar school, and idle; he went with Parr to Norwich, given another chance. On 14 January 1782 he was admitted a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, under the tuition of the Rev. Charles Jesse, and was shortly elected scholar. William Lisle Bowles, the poet, and William Benwell, a man of literary taste, were also scholars, and became his friends. Thomas Warton was then a fellow of the college, and a significant influence on Headley. William Beloe published other works in the Sexagenarian.

Family During his vacation visits from Oxford to his friends in Norfolk, Headley fell in love, with a woman referred to in his poems as Myra. Friends disapproved, and she was prevailed upon to marry a rival. The death of his father freed him from constraints, and he left Oxford in 1785, without taking leave. He was then, apparently, privately married to another woman, and went to Matlock.