Falconer, William

(1732-1769)

   Born in Edinburgh, the son of a poor barber, he became a merchant seaman. Although poorly educated, he understood French, Spanish, Italian, and German. He was second mate on board a ship in the Levant trade when, on a voyage from Alexandria to Venice, it was wrecked off Greece. His major poem The Shipwreck (1762) (dedicated to the Duke of York, then rear-admiral) is an autobiographical narrative of that event of 1749, in which Falconer was one of three survivors. The Duke advised him to enter the Royal Navy. He did, and sailed on the Royal George under Sir Charles Hardy in November 1762 and as purser on the frigate Glory and other ships. He died at sea when the Aurora was shipwrecked off the Cape of Good Hope on the way to India. Some of his other publications: Demagogue, 1764 (a political satire). The Universal Marine Dictionary, 1769. Some of his other poems: "An Address to Miranda," "Description of a Ninety Gun Ship," "High o'er the Poop the Audacious Seas Aspire," "The Fond Lover," "The Midshipman," "The Shipwreck."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Eternal Sea: An Antholog y of Sea Poetry. W.M. Williamson, ed. CowardMcCann, 1946. The Oxford Book of the Sea. Jonathan Raban, ed. Oxford University Press, 1992. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. William Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine (http://southseas.nla.gov.au/refs/falc/title.html).