Chatterton, Thomas

British poet and satirist born in Bristol where he grew up in the shadow of the city's magnificent 15th century cathedral, St. Mary Redcliffe; Chatterton was fascinated by the Gothic beauty of the cathedral from an early age. He was the son of the sexton who died a few months before his son was born and who left little to his children apart from his musicality and an interest in antique artefacts; he left a couple of wooden crates containing medieval manuscripts that had been salvaged from the neglected church archives in his will. Chatterton's mother worked hard as a seamstress to provide for Thomas, his sister and an older relative.