Author: Cattermole, Richard
Biography:
CATTERMOLE, Richard (1795-1858: ODNB)
He was born on 18 Dec. 1795 at either Kirby (RLF) , or Thrigby (1851 Census), towns near Norwich, Norfolk, the third of at least five children of William Cattermole and Sarah Farrow, who had married in 1786. He entered Christ’s College Cambridge in 1819 and only matriculated as a ten-year man (1830) and graduated as BD (1831). He married Maria Frances Giles (1802-34) on 17 May 1825. They had six children. Coleridge (q.v.) was godfather to his eldest son, George Richard Coleridge Cattermole (1828-1904). His wife died on 5 May 1834 in Bloomsbury, London. He then married Ellen Hamilton Coningham (1809-86) on 21 Nov. 1837 at St. George’s, Hanover Square. They went on to have seven children. Ordained priest in 1823, he was curate of St. Matthew’s, Brixton, Surrey (1825-31), perpetual curate of South Lambeth Chapel (1838-58), and vicar of Little Marlow (1848-58). He was Secretary to the Royal Society of Literature (1820-52). He was also one of the first members of the Society of British Authors, which was established in 1843 to protect authors’ copyrights and improve their rights with publishers. Nevertheless, he was forced to apply to the RLF for assistance in 1853, stating that he had twelve children, seven of whom were still at home. Given his debts of £1300 and income of at least £150 per annum, the RLF Committee rejected his application. He published the usual array of sermons but it is his editorial work on the writings of English-speaking divines which still retains value: Fourteen Sermons (1835), Gems of Sacred Literature (1841), Gems of Sacred Poetry (1841), The Literature of the Church of England (1844), and with Henry Stebbing, Sacred Classics, or Select Library of Divinity in 30 vols. (1834-36). He died on 6 Dec. 1858 at 69 rue de la Paix, Boulogne, France, and was buried there. (ODNB 17 Mar. 2023; CCEd 17 Mar. 2023; OUCH 28 May 1825; MH 7 May 1834, 13 Dec. 1858; London Courier 24 Nov. 1837; GM Jan. 1859, 99) AA