At this time Patmore's father was financially embarrassed; and in 1846 Richard Monckton Milnes obtained for Coventry the post of printed book supernumary assistant at the British Museum, a post he occupied for nineteen years, devoting his spare time to poetry. In 1847 he married Emily Augusta Andrews, daughter of Dr. Andrews of Camberwell, and by 1851 they had had two sons, Coventry (born 1848) and Tennyson (born 1850). Three daughters followed – Emily (born 1853), Bertha (born 1855) and Gertrude (born 1857), before their last child, a son (Henry John), was born in 1860. Emily Andrews wrote children's stories.