Montgomery Woman Bio

— The Corvey Poets Project at the University of Nebraska —

British Poetry of the later Eighteenth and Earlier Nineteenth Centuries

Bibliographical and Contextual Apparatus

Montgomery, Robert

Woman, the Angel of Life. London: Turrill, 1833.

Biographical Information

Robert Montgomery was born in Bath in 1807 to parents Robert Gomery and Elizabeth Medows Boyce. It is not clear whether his parents baptized him with the name Montgomery, or if he changed his name in order to gain literary credibility with a more aristocratic sounding name. As a result of this name change, Montgomery's work was sometimes mistaken for that of the more famous poet James Montgomery.

He attended Dr. Arnot's school in Bath. At age 17, he established a newspaper called The Inspector, which did not survive long. In 1827, he wrote his first poem, titled The Stage Coach. Later that year, he wrote a satirical poem about contemporary mankind, titled The Age Reviewed. He published many short poems in several different publications, including two poems in Lady's Book between 1830 and 1833 titled "The Temptation of Christ," and "Our Lord's First Miracle," and a poem titled "Stanzas for Music" in a publication called Casket in 1829.

Montgomery edited a newspaper called the Bath Star, which provided him with the finances to further his education. He obtained his bachelor's degree in 1833, followed by his master's degree in 1838 from Lincoln College in Oxford.

In May of 1835, he was ordained a deacon at St. Asaph. For the next year, he worked as a clerk at the Church of St. John the Baptist in Whittington, Shropshire. In 1836, he left to St. John the Baptist to become a minister at the episcopal church of St. Jude in Glasgow. In 1843, he journeyed to the parish of St Pancras in London, where he became the minister of Percy Chapel. During his time spent at these churches, he was a successful preacher and writer of theology.

In 1843, he married Rachel, the daughter of A. Mackenzie of Bursledon, Hampshire. He and Rachel had one child. Montgomery died in December of 1855 in Brighton.

Montgomery is best known for his poem The Omni-presence of the Deity (1928). His other works include Satan (1830), The Puffiad (1830), Oxford (1831), and The Messiah (1832). His poems The Omni-presence of the Deity and Satan were harshly criticized in a famous review written by Thomas Babington Macaulay in the Edinburgh Review (April 1830). In reaction to this review, Montgomery responded, "The reviewer is, we believe, still alive, and from time to time employs himself in making mouths at distinguished men. Most heartily do we wish him a nobler office than that of being the hired assassin of a bigoted review." Despite bad reviews such as this one, Montgomery's poetry was very popular, and many editions were published.

Works cited:

Smith, George. Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. XIII. Masquerier-Myles, Oxford University Press, London. 1937.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gomery/robmont.html
http://25.1911encyclopedia.org/M/MO/MONTGOMERY_ROBERT.htm