PMarione
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Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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 Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 12:16 pm Post subject: The author of the "Memoirs of EH" exposed |
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Jacqui Livesey has published an article in the August issue of History Today (vol 58/8, pp 4-5) unmasking the anonymous author of the Memoirs of Lady Hamilton of 1815.
A pdf file of these "juicy" memoirs can be found on this website http://www.ageofnelson.org/Document08.html.
The Memoirs have often been attributed to Francis Oliver, the long time serving secretary of WH and an unsympathetic man. They content a lot of material that could only have been known by somebody of the household, and Oliver who entered in the service of WH aged 12 is a good candidate.
According to J. Livesey, he probably was the primary source but not the real author of the Memoirs.
She discovered that Henry Colburn (publisher of the Memoirs) published an anonymous Memoirs of the Life & Writings of the Rt Hon Lord Byron in the same vein.
Byron's death in 1824 was the occasion for a second edition by "the author of the Memoirs of Lady Hamilton".
From there J. Livesey identified the author of Byron's Memoirs as John Watkins.
| Quote: | Watkins, John (fl. c.1786–1831), writer, born in Devon, was educated at Bristol for the nonconformist ministry. Becoming dissatisfied, he joined the Church of England about 1786 with his friend Samuel Badcock (1747–1788) and for some years ran an academy in Devon.
His first independent publication appeared in 1792, entitled An Essay towards the History of Bideford. The work was of great local interest, containing among other things an account of the depositions in a trial for witchcraft held at Exeter on 14 August 1682.
In 1796 he published The Peeper: a Collection of Essays, Moral, Biographical, and Literary, which was dedicated to Hannah More.
Watkins showed great interest in biography, even compiling a Universal Biographical and Historical Dictionary, which appeared in 1800. It went through several editions by 1827, and was translated into French, with additions, in 1803 by Jean Baptiste L'Ecuy of Paris. Among similar compilations are Characteristic Anecdotes of Men of Learning and Genius (1808) and Boydell's heads of illustrious and celebrated persons, from the reign of Queen Elizabeth to William III, with biographical memoirs (1812).
Watkins's Memoirs of Sheridan (1816) was the first life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan to be published. Other memoirs published by him were Memoirs of Queen Sophia Charlotte (1819); Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord Byron (1822), translated into German in 1825; A Biographical Memoir of … Frederick, Duke of York and Albany (1827); and The Life and Times of ‘England's Patriot King’, William IV (1831).
He also translated from the Latin George Buchanan's History of Scotland, adding a continuation (1827), and wrote a memoir of Hugh Latimer, prefixed to his Sermons (1824).
On the title pages of his later publications, Watkins is described as LLD but from where he obtained the degree is unknown. So is the date of his death, the last that is known of him being a preface dated 30 May 1831. He moved to London soon after beginning his literary work, about 1794, and it is possible that he died there. |
From the DNB
An interesting little mistery solved.
The article of J. Livesey is available on a pay per article basis at http://www.historytoday.com/MainArticle.aspx?m=32826&amid=30256919 |
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