Richard Furness was known as "The Poet of Eyam" after the village in Derbyshire, England where he was born on 2 August 1791.
He initially got a job keeping accounts locally but then went as apprentice to a currier in Chesterfield at the age of fourteen.
He also acted as vestry and parish clerk, but showed his independence of mind and action by invariably closing his book and resuming his seat at the recitation of the Athanasian Creed.
He practised medicine and surgery, and when the ancient chapel of Dore was pulled down, his plans for a new church were adopted.
His next was 'Medicus-Magus, a poem, in three cantos,’ Sheffield, 1836, 12mo, in which he depicted the manners, habits, and limited intelligence in the more remote parts of Derbyshire, the local terms being elucidated by a glossary.
After his death a collected edition of his 'Poetical Works’, with a sketch of his life by Dr. G. Calvert Holland, was published (Sheffield, 1858, 8vo).