Robert Bolling

Who was Robert Bolling?

Robert Bolling was a poet, planter and politician from the English colony of Virginia. A grandson of Robert Bolling, he was born in Virginia and sent to England for his education. On his return to Virginia, he studied law, but soon took over at Chellowe, a tobacco plantation in Buckingham County, Virginia inherited from his father.

Though he published at least 35 poems in English periodicals during his lifetime, most of his works remained in manuscript, and remain unpublished. His papers are owned by the University of Virginia Library and the Henry E. Huntington Library. His book A Memoir of a Portion of the Bolling Family in England and Virginia was published posthumously, in 1868; it was originally written in French and translated by a descendant.

Critical interest in Bolling's literary productions has increased along with a general resurgence in interest, among scholars of early American literature, in Southern and other non-New England colonial poets.

Bolling was a member of the House of Burgesses. He died in July or August 1775 in Richmond while attending the third Virginia Convention.