#8 of 20 star objects - George Crabbe Display

Again, like the Taylors shop post, rather than focus on just one object, this post will look at an exhibit in the Museum as a whole.
This time, just a small case that could be missed if you were busying yourself with the mouse hunt, or distracted by the workings of our Victorian machinery. That’s not to say that it should be missed, as the man behind it has been admired by many over the years.

sketch of George Crabbe

From humble origins of Aldeburgh, a fishing village in Suffolk, he served his apprenticeship to an apothecary, and then set up as a surgeon-apothecary in 1775.He abandoned this career four years later and went to London to earn his living as a writer. In 1782 he was ordained priest and became chaplain to the Duke of Rutland. He held several livings thereafter, and finally in 1814 became rector of Trowbridge, Wiltshire, where he spent the rest of his life, until this death in 1832.
George Crabbe was a poet with a national reputation when he came to Trowbridge at the age of 60. He was well liked in the town and although sometimes complained of the society it offered ‘we have no persons in Trowbridge who are not connected with factories and business’ he made good friends and regarded Trowbridge with some affection

His first poem ‘the village’ was published in 1783, followed in 1810 by ‘The Borough’ which inspired Benjamin Britten to write his opera ‘Peter Grimes’ in 1945. Some of the characters in the original poem were incorporated into the opera and a story was then woven around them.

George Crabbe was an early fossil and rock collector at a time when it was a uncommon hobby and the study of geology was relatively new.
Like many cultured men of the time, he also collected plants, though he concentrated on geology after his arrival in Wiltshire. The Crabbe case in the Museum, shows just a small selection of his collection.

George Crabbe display case in Trowbridge Museum

Crabbe was a great favourite of Jane Austen, and was apparently playfully nicknamed ‘Mrs Crabbe’ by her family. It has been recorded that "Austen never met Crabbe, but nursed a fantasy of becoming his wife".
The name of the heroine of Mansfield Park, Fanny Price comes from Crabbe's poem The Parish Register "For Fanny Price was lovely and was chaste". Mansfield Park coincidentally was published in 1814 , the year Crabbe came to Trowbridge as rector.

George Crabbe continues to inspire, as in 2014 our Crabbe collection acted as inspiration to local Artist Jan Lane

Jan Lane's owl inspired by our fossil collection

George Crabbe's white marble monument can be seen in the Parish Church of St. James, Trowbridge.