Richard Alfred Davenport (1777–1852) was an English miscellaneous writer.

Life

Davenport was born in Lambeth on 18 January 1777,[1] and started work as a writer in London at an early age. In the late 1790s he knew John Britton and Peter Lionel Courtier through a debating society, the "School of Eloquence".[2][3]

Davenport wrote large portions of the history, biography, geography, and criticism in Rivington's Annual Register for several years (1792 to 1797, according to John Britton).[2] He edited, with lives, a number of the British poets for the Chiswick Press edition in 100 volumes (1822); the biographies were supplied from the existing ones Samuel Johnson, with Davenport, Samuel Weller Singer, and some others, writing the rest.[4][5] Later he did much work for Thomas Tegg.[2]

For the last 11 years of his life Davenport lived at Brunswick Cottage, Park Street, Camberwell, a freehold house of which he was the owner. Here he lived and working alone, drinking large quantities of laudanum, in some squalor at the end. On Sunday, 25 January 1852, a passing policeman was attracted by someone moaning. He broke into the house and discovered Davenport unconscious, with a laudanum bottle in his hand. He died before anything could be done for him. An inquest found his death to be an accidental overdose.[4]

Works

Biography

Besides his work for the Chiswick Press Poets, Davenport compiled A Dictionary of Biography (1831), and produced an edition of Matthew Pilkington's General Dictionary of Painters (1852).[4]

Other works

Davenport also wrote:[4]

To Murray's Family Library Davenport contributed:

Davenport translated many works, and contributed to periodical literature articles on biography, poetry, criticism, and other subjects. He was also a writer of verse.[4] Some of it was set to music, by his friend Timothy Essex.[6]

Editorial roles included the works of William Robertson the historian, with life, 1824; William Mitford's History of Greece, with continuation to the death of Alexander, 1835; and some works like William Guthrie's Geographical, Historical, and Commercial Grammar, and William Enfield's Speaker.[4]

Family

Davenport married in 1800;[1] they later separated, and she became a novelist under her married name Selina Davenport. They had two daughters together; a son Theodore Alfred Davenport was not from this marriage.[7] Elizabeth Gaskell encountered Selina Davenport in Knutsford around 1850.[8]

Notes

  1. ^ a b Lyre (1806). Peter Lionel Courtier (ed.). The Lyre of Love. p. 103. Retrieved 28 September 2013.
  2. ^ a b c John Britton (1850). The Auto-biography of John Britton. The Author. p. 93 note. Retrieved 28 September 2013.
  3. ^ Radcliffe, David Hill. "Courtier, Peter Lionel". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/64783. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ a b c d e f Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1888). "Davenport, Richard Alfred" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 14. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  5. ^ George Watson; Ian R. Willison (1971). The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature: 1660-1800. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1968–. ISBN 978-0-521-07934-1. Retrieved 29 September 2013.
  6. ^ A Dictionary of Musicians from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time. Sainsbury. 1824. p. 232. Retrieved 28 September 2013.
  7. ^ Spencer, H. J. "Davenport, Richard Alfred". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/7203. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  8. ^ John Chapple; Alan Shelston (4 March 2004). Further Letters of Mrs. Gaskell. Manchester University Press. pp. 49–50. ISBN 978-0-7190-6771-6. Retrieved 28 September 2013.

External links

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1888). "Davenport, Richard Alfred". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 14. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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