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Shropshire town, 13 miles N of Church Stretton.
In his novel Howard's End (1910) E. M Forster (1879-1970) refers to Shrewsbury as the astonishing city .It remains astonishing to this day, in spite of the ravages of developers and so-called planners in the 1950's and 1960's, for its wealth of mediaeval and Tudor buildings, for its great sense of history and, above all, for its situation in an almost circular loop of the River Severn. Not surprisingly then many famous, and infamous, figures have arrived at this county town over the centuries and among them have been writers, many of whom are listed here.
Thomas Churchyard (1520-1604), poet, soldier and courtier, was born in Shrewsbury.
The poet Philip Sidney (1554-1586) as a child was sent to Shrewsbury School where he quickly made friends with fellow pupil Fulke Greville (1554-1628), author and nobleman.
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) visited the town on one of his tours and described his impressions of the place.
Celia Fiennes (1662-1741) visited Shrewsbury in 1698.
Arthur Mainwaring (1668-1712), poet and critic, was educated at Shrewsbury School.
Ambrose Philips (c. 1675-1749) was a controversial poet born in Shrewsbury and educated, like so many others, at Shrewsbury School.
George Farquahar (1678-1707) visited Shrewsbury as an army officer and set his play The Recruiting Officer (1706) in the town.
John Wesley (1703-1791) visited and preached in Shrewsbury on several occasions. On his first visit he preached from 1 Fish Street a building which is now called Wesley House.
Job Orton (1717-1783) was born in Shrewsbury, educated at Shrewsbury School and was yet another influential figure to be connected with the High Street Unitarian Church.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was in Shrewsbury in 1797 as a locum at the High Street Unitarian Church.
Charles Hulbert (1778-1857) came to Shrewsbury from Manchester, ran a cotton factory and turned to literature both as a writer and as a publisher and printer.
John F. N. Dovaston (1782-1854) was educated at Shrewsbury School.
Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) stayed at The Lion Hotel and passed a very restless night in that establishment.
Richard Harris Barham (1788-1845) was author of the Ingoldsby Legends (1840) in which he perpetuated the name of the famous Shrewsbury Cake.
William Henry West Betty (1791-1874) the famous child actor was born in the town. Charles Burney (1726-1814), author and musician, was born in Raven Street (later called Castle Street).
Mrs E. J. Burbury, novelist, had connections with Shrewsbury and knew the headmaster of the Royal Free Grammar School in the middle 1800s.
F. Bayford Harrison, 19th century novelist, set his novel The Battlefield treasure in Battlefield and central areas of Shrewsbury.
David Simons (19th century), was an aspiring Welsh poet who made himself unpopular, to say the least, with his scurrilous newspaper in Shrewsbury.
John Bickerton Williams (1792-1855) was Mayor of Shrewsbury in 1836.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), the important American writer, visited in 1855 and stayed at The Lion Hotel.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), the great statesman and novelist, was M.P. for Shrewsbury from 1841 to 1847.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was born at Mount House and educated at a school at 13 Claremont Hill and later Shrewsbury School. His statue stands outside the old school buildings at Castle Gates (now Shrewsbury Library).
Robert Williams (1810-1881), the linguist, was educated at Shrewsbury School.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) also stayed at The Lion Hotel and performed at the Music Hall on three occasions.
Eliza Meteyard (1816-1879) was born in Shrewsbury.
W.S. Symonds (1818-1887), novelist, based part of his novel Hanley Castle in Shrewsbury.
William Walsham How (1823-1897), author and hymn writer, was born at College Hill and educated at Shrewsbury School.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) was educated at Shrewsbury School, as was Stanley Weyman (1855-1928), the novelist who spent most of his life in Ludlow.
The novelist Lester Ralph (1878-1936) taught at the Priory School for Boys from 1914 onwards.
Desmond Coke (1879-1959) was educated at Shrewsbury School and recalled it in one of his stories for boys.
Mary Webb (1881-1927), Shropshire's own novelist and poet, had a stall in the market for a time during the First World War. She lived at Meole Brace on the outskirts of the town and obviously knew and loved Shrewsbury, which she called Silverton in her novels. She is buried in Shrewsbury cemetery.
Neville Cardus (1889-1975), the music critic and cricket writer, was assistant cricket coach and later secretary to the headmaster at Shrewsbury School before the First World War.
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), possibly the finest of all war poets, spent the latter part of his childhood and his teenage years living in Shrewsbury with his parents at 1 Cleveland Place and, later, 71 Monkmoor Road.
Ernest George Lee (1896-?), author of religious works and a novel was minister at the High Street Unitarian Church in the 1930's.
Frances Eagar (died 1978) lived latterly at Ingram's Hall, The Schools.
There is a memorial in Shrewsbury Abbey to the novelist Edith Pargeter (1913-1995), who was born and lived all her life in Shropshire. She has renewed interest in the history of the town through her series of Brother Cadfael novels which are set in Shrewsbury Abbey in the 12th century.
Bruce Montgomery (1921-1978) taught at Shrewsbury School and wrote detective novels under the name Edmund Crispin.
Gavin Gibbons (1922-1978) was educated at Shrewsbury School and made his home in Shrewsbury.
Writers currently living in and around Shrewsbury include John Waddington-Feather (1933- ) and the poets Peter Reading (1946- ) and Simon Fletcher (1958- ).
Location map of Shrewsbury courtesy of Streetmap.co.uk
Page created 1 October 2002 and last updated
1 February 2005
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