Author: Boaden, James
Biography:
BOADEN, James (1762-1839: ODNB)
He was born on 23 May 1762 at Whitehaven, Cumberland, to William Boaden, a merchant, and his wife Elizabeth Blanker. He was baptised in Whitehaven on 31 Dec. 1762 but at some point the family moved to London where Boaden was intended to follow a mercantile career like his father. After five years in a counting house, he turned to journalism and became editor of a new literary journal, The Oracle, in 1789. He married and his wife’s first name was Sarah but neither her surname nor the date of the marriage is known; they had six daughters and two sons. On 12 June 1793 Boaden was admitted to the Middle Temple but, although he remained a member for several decades, he was never called to the bar. His first dramatic composition, Ozmyn and Daraxa, dates from 1793 and was followed by many more, including adaptations of popular Gothic fiction. In 1803 he ceased writing for the stage and became first an army agent and then an associate with the firm of Donaldson and Boaden in Whitehall. His correspondence with the RLF reveals that in 1824 he abruptly lost his private income and the family became exclusively dependent on his literary earnings. Boaden turned to writing theatrical biographies, a genre at which he excelled; his books on such figures as Sarah Siddons, Dorothy Jordan, and John Philip Kemble remain relevant for their first-hand knowledge of contemporary theatre. Although the biographies were critically well-received in his lifetime, his situation remained financially precarious and he first applied to the RLF in 1831. He was awarded a total of £140 over seven years. His daughter Caroline, also a writer, applied in 1835 when Boaden was in the Fleet prison for debt; she was awarded £10 with a further £15 after Boaden’s death. He had to sell the family home in Fitzroy Square in 1831 and died of dropsy in lodgings on Waterloo Bridge Road on 16 Feb. 1839. He was buried in Kensal Green cemetery with his wife who had predeceased him in 1838. Boaden was one of the first to express doubts about the authenticity of William Ireland’s Shakespearean forgeries (Letter to George Steevens, 1796). (ODNB 6 Jan. 2022; ancestry.co.uk 6 Jan. 2022; RLF files 698 & 833) SR