Author: Bounden, Joseph
Biography:
BOUNDEN, Joseph (1782-1837: ancestry.co.uk)
It is not known where or when or if he was baptised and his parents are unknown. His will gives no family clues. He died on 5 Oct. 1837, aged 55, of chronic asthma, at 65 Newman Street, Oxford Street, London, where he had been living as a lodger. He was buried at Whitefields Chapel (Methodist), Tottenham Court Road, on 12 Oct. 1837. He seems to have lived most of his life in the St. Marylebone area of Westminster although in his will he left two houses in Lower Marsh Street, Lambeth. Tax records locate a Joseph Bounden in St. Marylebone in 1808 and 1810; and it is quite possible he was the Joseph Bounden apprenticed as a bookbinder to Stanley Heard in that area. This would be consistent with his age as given on the death certificate. In 1838 a few pieces were published in a short-lived periodical Sunbeam and included “My Native Village Revisited,” but these yield no further clues. His first volume of poetry, Fatal Curiosity (1805), was widely advertised and his second volume, The Deserted City (1824), was well received and included an original poem, “Electricity.” A Gothic novel, The Murderer (1808), attracted less attention, as did a play, The Fortress of Rotzberg, in 1818. He contributed many, mostly long, poems under his own name and as “J. B”’ to the short-lived Philomathic Journal (1824-26) which he seems to have edited with one or more contributors, George and Jonathan Dawson and J. A. Heraud (q.v.). With his interest in science, apocalyptic decline or destruction of cities, nonconformist burial, and knowledge of other Dissenters, he may have had freethinking, possibly even Spencean sympathies. Further information may emerge from study of the figures associated with the Philomathic Institution, Burton Street, London. (ancestry.co.uk 10 Jun. 2022; N&Q 24 Oct. 1863; GRO death cert.) AA