Francis Noel Clarke Mundy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Francis Noel Clarke Mundy
by Joseph Wright of Derby
Born	15 August 1739 Osbaston[1]
Died	23 October 1815 Markeaton Hall
Burial place	Allestree Church
Residence	Markeaton Hall
Nationality	English
Education	Repton, Winchester and New College, Oxford
Occupation	magistrate, landowner and poet
Known for	Poetry
Successor	Francis Mundy
Spouse	Elizabeth Elizabeth Burdett
Children	Francis Mundy and Charles Godfrey Mundy
Parents	Wrightson Mundy and Anne (was Burdett)

Francis Noel Clarke Mundy 1739 – 1815 was a poet who published with Anna Seward and Erasmus Darwin. His mosted noted work was written to defend Needwood Forest which was enclosed at the beginning of the 19th century. He was the father of Francis Mundy.

[edit] Biography

Francis Noel Clarke Mundy was born 15 August 1739 at Osbaston, Leicestershire which at that time belonged to the Mundys a family which had been based in Markeaton since John Mundy bought lands in Derbyshire. He received his education at Repton School and at Winchester School and then proceeded to New College, Oxford.^[1]

In 1762-3, Joseph Wright exhibited a set of six portaits that were commissined by Mundy. Each of the portraits were in the distintive dress of the Markearton Hunt consisting of yellow breeches and a blue coat over a scarlet waitcoat. These paintings hung at the ancestral home of Markeaton Hall.^[2] The subjects of these commissions included old school friends like Harry Peckham K.C. and relatives like his brother-in-law, Nicholas Heath.

Mundy married first Elizabeth Ayrton who died in Falmouth aged 22 on 1 October 1768. He then married Elizabeth eldest daughter of Sir Robert Burdett bart in 1770 and had two sons: Francis and Charles Godfrey ^[3] His second wife died in 1807 aged 64.^[1]

Mundy was the author of two admired descriptive poems Needwood Forest (1776) and the Fall of Needwood (1808). Needwood Forest was a large ancient woodland in Staffordshire which was destroyed under the authority of the enclosure Act of 1803. Despite Mundy's and other protests it was removed by 1811. Anna Seward regarded his poem, Needwood Forest, as "one of the most beautiful local poems".^[4]

Mundy died in 1815 and the magistrates of Derbyshire commissioned a bust by Francis Chantrey which was placed in the county hall in memory of his long and eminent services as justice of the peace and chairman of the quarter sessions.^[5] The bust has the following inscription

This Effigy is consecrated by his Countrymen to the Memory of Francis Noel Clarke Mundy who having modestly declined their unanimous Offer to elect him their Representative in Parliament continued to preside on the Bench of Justices in this Hall during a period of nearly 50 years with a clearness of judgment and an integrity of decision well worthy of being gratefully and honourably recorded This excellent Man admired for the elegance of his literary Productions beloved for the gentleness of his Manners revered for his public and private Virtues lived happily at his paternal seat at Markeaton to the age of 76 years May his Example excite Emulation "^[1]

In addition there is an engraving of him with his grandson, William Mundy, by Charles Turner (after R. R. Reinagle). The picture also features in the foreground the manuscipt of Mundy's ‘'The Fall of Needwood Forest’'.

In 1830, two volumes were published which made available the many poems not published during Mundy's lifetime.^[1] Finally, in 1851, William Mundy paid for a memorial window to his grandfather to be installed in Markeaton church.

[edit] Major works

• Needwood Forest, 1776, by Francis Noel Clarke Mundy, Brooke Boothby, Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward

[edit] References