Ebenezer Elliott, an English poet, called "the corn law rhymer," born at Masborough, near Rotherham, Yorkshire, March 17, 1781, died near Barnsley, Dec. 1, 1849. His father, who was employed in a foundery near Masborough, was a dissenter of what was called the Berean sect, an occasional preacher, and a forcible political speaker of the ultra radical type. Young Elliott received the education usually afforded to boys of his condition, but at school was noted for little else than dulness and laziness. He was unable to master the rudiments of grammar or arithmetic, and often gratified an instinctive love for nature and solitude by stolen rambles in the meadows and woodlands. His father consequently set him to work in the foundery. He was beginning to fall into dissipated habits when the perusal of a treatise on botany revived his love of nature, and he became an industrious collector of botanical specimens. He also procured access to a small library of the old divines and poets, and in his 17th year produced his first published poem, "The Vernal Walk," which was followed by "Night," "Wharncliffe," "Love," and others. His powers increased with each new work, and he attracted the notice of Southey, to whose kind offices he was accustomed to refer with affection and gratitude.

He had meanwhile worked steadily till his 23d year in the foundery, which his father had purchased on credit, and having married set up at Rotherham in the iron business on his own account, but was unsuccessful. At 30 years of age he became an earnest advocate of the laboring classes. The corn laws in particular struck him as unjust, and upon his failure in business he attributed his misfortunes to their influence. In 1821 he made another venture as an iron merchant in Sheffield, with a borrowed capital of £100, and was soon embarked in a lucrative business. He now commenced his " Corn Law Rhymes," which were written with the sole purpose of procuring the repeal of the obnoxious laws. At first published in a local paper and afterward collected in a single volume, these poems brought Elliott into notice. "The Ranter," which succeeded, was a long poem in a similar vein. In 1829 appeared his " Village Patriarch," the best of his larger pieces. In 1833 he commenced a complete edition of his works, which appeared during the next two years, and for the first time made generally known many of the author's poems not of an exclusively political character.

Several other editions appeared in the course of his life, and to the last he continued to write verses, chiefly for the periodical press, and occasionally spoke in support of his peculiar views. The commercial panic of 1837 entailed serious pecuniary losses upon him, but by careful management he was enabled in 1841 to retire from business with a competency and settle at a villa near Barnsley, where he passed the last years of his life in pleasant seclusion. Soon after his death was published " More Prose and Verse by the Corn Law Rhymer " (2 vols., London, 1850), and his " Autobiography," in the "Athenaeum" (January, 1850).