Richard Harry Barham

English poet and novelist, London priest. Born in Canterbury, he was educated at St. Paul's College, London, and in 1805 entered Brassenose College, Oxford University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts. After taking up theological studies, he became a minister in 1813 in Ashford, a small town in Kent County. In 1821 he was made canon of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Barkham's fame was formed by a cycle of ballads that began to appear in 1837 in Bentley's Miscellany under the title "The Ingoldsby legends" and signed with the pseudonym Thomas Ingoldsby.