John Chalkhill

John Chalkhill (born c. 1595, possibly at Chalkhill House, Kingsbury, Middlesex, Eng.—died April 8, 1642, Westminster) was an English poet whose Thealma and Clearchus was published posthumously in 1683 by Izaak Walton, and who was identified in the third edition of Walton’s Compleat Angler as the author of two songs which appeared there from the first edition (1653).

Because little was known of Chalkhill’s life, it was often speculated that he never existed save as a nom de plume for Walton or another, but in 1958 the mystery was solved with the discovery of eight distinctive autograph manuscripts in the papers of a collateral descendant, Lieut. Col. Philip Gell of Derbyshire. These enabled firm identification and confirmation of his facile style. Chalkhill was the son of Ion or Ivon (d. 1615) and Martha (1566–1620) Chalkhill. He was admitted as a scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, in April 1611. His sister Martha married Thomas Ken and became stepmother to Ann Ken, whom Walton married five years after the poet’s death. The family connection evidently made Chalkhill’s lyrics available to Walton. The manuscripts, which were acquired by Arthur Houghton for the library at Wye Plantation in Maryland, U.S., include a number of previously unknown poems including a humorous letter in verse (containing some ribald allusions) to his “lovinge and kinde Coussen [Mistress] Katherine Packerre.” Chalkhill is buried at St. Margaret’s, Westminster.