John Bicknell solicitor to the Admiralty and the Prince Regent, became father-in-law to John Constable. His eldest daughter Maria Elizabeth Bicknell married Constable in 1816. John Bicknell John Bicknell, the elder (baptised 1746 – 1787) was an English barrister and writer. He was co-author with Thomas Day of the abolitionist poem "The Dying Negro" from 1773. Bicknell has also been credited with "Musical Travels through England", a pseudonymous satire on Charles Burney. The second son of Robert Bicknell of the Inner Temple, he was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1761. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1769.
John Bicknell plan to train a suitable wife from himself, at Shrewsbury orphanage. Bicknell befriended John Laurens, then a law student in London of his brother Charles Bicknell, around 1774. Considered a rake, his attitude to his legal career was negligent, and he spent time on writing. He was a commissioner of bankruptcy. Bicknell died on 27 April 1787. "The Dying Negro" (1773) is thought to have originated in a draft by Bicknell, then passed to Day who worked it up for publication. Some of his contemporaries credited Bicknell with the "Musical Travels" published in 1774 under the pseudonym "Joel Collier". This