Ebenezer Elliott was born at Masborough, near Rotherham, Yorkshire. His father, Ebenezer senior, was a clerk in an iron foundry, and although his mother, Ann, was an invalid, she worked as the mother of eleven children. Ebenezer junior had a modest education, and he records in his memoir that at school he was taught little more than how to write. He was sent to work in the foundry, where from age sixteen until twenty-three he weighed castings. His social and financial position improved when, probably in 1805, he married Fanny Gartside, who brought a considerable dowry to the marriage. The couple eventually had thirteen children together. Elliott invested his wife's fortune in an iron foundry, and, after this business went bankrupt in 1818, he moved to Sheffield the following year. In 1821 he was able to reopen his business with 100 that he received from his two sisters-in-law.

Elliott began writing verse...