Poetry legend with Oswestry descendants honoured in Wordsworth stamp collection
A famous poet with many descendants in Oswestry has been honoured with his own stamp.
John Clare, famed for poems inspired by forbidden love, has been included in the latest Royal Mail collection, which is in celebration of the 250th anniversary of William Wordsworth.
The stamp features a songbird sitting atop a branch in black and white, with the words: "For everything I felt a love, The weeds below the birds above" from his poem The Progress of Rhyme.
The collection of 10 new stamps also features poems from bards including William Blake, Lord Byron, John Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Walter Scott, Mary Robinson, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Wordsworth himself.
Although he came from Helpston, Northampton, he has many descendants in Oswestry, including great great great granddaughter Chris Breeze.
She said: "I was made up to find out that my great, great, great grandad has also been included in this collection alongside Blake, Byron and Keats."
Clare was born in 1793. He had a turbulent life, leaving school early to work, and suffered ill health as a child.
When he was a young adult he met Mary Joyce where he worked at the Blue Bell Inn as a pot-boy. He fell in love with her but was forbidden to see her by her prosperous father and never really got over her. She continued to be the inspiration of his poetry all through his life.
In 1820 he married Patty and he had his first book of poems published.
Chris added: "At this time the Argricultural Revolution was happening and all that John loved was being ripped apart from him. Landowners were fencing off the land and his freedom to roam was taken away. His mental health suffered and he was eventually taken to an asylum, where he escaped after a while and walked 80 miles home.
"After a few months he was taken back and he eventually died there at the age of 70. He still continued writing his poetry there, one of his best being 'I Am'. He wrote 3,000 poems during his life not all of which have been published and was described as the greatest working class poet ever born in England."
Clare died in 1864 but had a son, also called John, who moved to Oswestry where he married his wife. John Jr is buried at a church in Four Crosses.
