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.
Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River) Anglican bishop John Fisher and his family in Salisbury, but from 1809 onwards his childhood friendship with Maria Bicknell developed into a deep, mutual love. Their engagement in 1816 was opposed by Maria's grandfather, Dr. Rhudde, rector of East Bergholt, who considered the Constables his social inferiors and threatened Maria with disinheritance. Maria's father, Charles Bicknell, a solicitor, was reluctant to see Maria throw away this inheritance, and Maria herself pointed out that a penniless marriage would detract from any chances John had of making a career in painting. After the death of his parents in the same year, Constable