Ebenezer Elliott

Ebenezer Elliott (17 March 1781 – 1 December 1849) was an English poet, known as the Corn Law rhymer for his leading the fight to repeal the Corn Laws, which were causing hardship and starvation among the poor. Though a factory owner himself, his single-minded devotion to the welfare of the labouring classes won him a sympathetic reputation long after his poetry ceased to be read.

Elliott was born at the New Foundry, Masbrough, in the parish of Rotherham, Yorkshire. His father, known as "Devil Elliott" for his fiery sermons, was an extreme Calvinist and a strong Radical. He was engaged in the iron trade. His mother suffered from poor health, and young Ebenezer, although one of eleven children, of whom eight reached maturity, had a solitary and rather morbid childhood. At the age of six he contracted smallpox, which left him "fearfully disfigured and six weeks blind". His health was permanently affected, and he suffered from illness and depression in later life.

He was first educated at a dame school, then at the Hollis School in Rotherham, where he was "taught to write and little more", but was generally regarded as a dunce. Moving to Thurlstone in 1790, he attended Penistone Grammar School. He hated school and preferred to play truant, spending his time exploring the countryside, observing the plants and local wildlife. At the age of 14 he began to read extensively on his own account, and in his leisure hours he studied botany, collected plants and flowers, and was delighted by the appearance of "a beautiful green snake about a yard long, which on the fine Sabbath mornings about ten o'clock seemed to expect me at the top of Primrose Lane." When he was 16 he was sent to work at his father's foundry, where he received only a little pocket money in lieu of wages for the next seven years.