Robert Bloomfield

Robert Bloomfield (1766-1823) left his father’s farm in Suffolk for London in 1781, where he was apprenticed to a shoemaker. His poem, The Farmer’s Boy (1800), a blend of neoclassic pastoralism and romantic love of nature, produced considerable popularity for the semi-educated Bloomfield. His fame continued with his next two collections of poems, Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs (1802) and To the Banks of Wye (1811).  During these years he began making his own distinctive version of the aeolian harp, named after the Greek god of the wind, Aeolus, for the ‘music’ produced by the wind as it blew across the harp’s strings stretched across two bridges on a sound board situated inside a wooden box. He had many connections among Unitarians and other dissenters, including Elizabeth Coltman and Mary Reid of Leicester (see there entries on this site), who worshiped among the Baptists during Robert Hall's tenure in Leicester, and Capel Loftt.