Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Carrington, Noel Thomas
CARRINGTON, NOEL THOMAS (1777–1830), Devonshire poet, was the son of a retail grocer at Plymouth, where he was born in 1777. Shortly after his birth his parents removed to Plymouth Dock, and for some time he was employed as a clerk in the Plymouth dockyard, but he found the occupation so irksome that he entered as a seaman on board a man-of-war. In this capacity he was present at the defeat of the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent by Sir John Jervis 14 July 1797. After his term of service expired he settled at Maidstone, Kent, where for five years he taught a public school. In 1809, at the solicitation of several friends, he established a private academy at Plymouth Dock which he conducted without intermission until six months before his death, 2 Sept. 1830. At an early period of his life Carrington began to contribute occasional pieces in verse to the London and provincial papers. His poems are chiefly descriptive of the scenery and traditions of his native county, and are characterised by no small literary grace, although without striking individuality in matter or manner. In 1820 he published separately ‘The Banks of the Tamar,’ and in 1826 ‘Dartmoor.’ His collected poems, with a short memoir prefixed, appeared posthumously in two volumes in 1831.
[Memoir prefixed to his Collected Poems; Gent. Mag. ci. pt. i. 276–9; Brit. Mus. Cat.]