Kelsall was often impoverished and seemed to bounce around from job to job in the teaching or industrial sectors. A Quaker, he lived in the Dolobran meeting-house 1713 but suffered financial difficulties as a result of lowered enrollment and he was forced to sell his stock and equipment. His poor health compounded his fall into poverty. He wrote prolifically in diaries, had a sizeable correspondence, and compiled two volumes of unpublished poetry.