TENNYSON IN THE LINCOLNSHIRE WOLDS

Alfred Lord Tennyson’s grandparents, George and Mary lived in Tealby with their four children, moving into Tealby Lodge in 1800. George Tennyson was a prosperous solicitor in the nearby town of Market Rasen. The family had connections with influential families from the region, including the Norman French d’Eyncourts, who once owned the manor of Tealby. George was ambitious, and built up a large property portfolio in the region. When he decided that his elder son, also called George, did not have the qualities to become his heir, he forced him to go into the church. So it was that Alfred Lord Tennyson’s father, George Clayton Tennyson, became the rector of Somersby and Bag Enderby from 1805 until his death in 1831. Poet Alfred, born in 1809, spent his first 28 years in the village of Somersby. He attended Louth Grammar School from 1816-1820, but reportedly hated it, crying every morning. Tennyson’s first book of poetry, Poems by Two Brothers, was written with his brother, Charles. It was published by Jacksons, a printer’s in Louth. When Tennyson was 16, his grandfather paid him 10 shillings to write an elegy to his grandmother. “That is the first money you have ever earned by your poetry, and, take my word for it, it will be the last,” he told him. Lord Tennyson went on to become the most popular poet of the Victorian era as well as Poet Laureate from 1850 until his death in 1892. He was so

famous that Prince Albert asked him for his autograph. Lord Tennyson is buried in Westminster Abbey.