Author: CLIFFE, Christian Frederic Wieles Leigh
Biography:
CLIFFE, Christian Frederic Wieles Leigh (1801-63: ancestry.co.uk)
In writing to the RLF on 28 May 1842, Cliffe accounted for the addition of “Leigh Cliffe” to Christian Frederic Wieles, the name by which he first addressed the Fund on 13 Nov. 1821. He explained that “Leigh Cliffe,” used for his published works, derived from his mother’s family and he began formally using it after the death of his grandmother. Cliffe was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1801 and his father was John Christian Wieles. It seems likely that he was of mixed Austrian and English ancestry but neither his mother’s name nor the date of his settlement in England is known. His first publication, The Protocol, is about the Queen Caroline affair and was written when he was a youth of nineteen. Thereafter he wrote prolifically, publishing verse, stories, and novels: Supreme Bon Ton (1820), The Knights of Ritzberg (1822), Temptation (1823), and Margaret Coryton (1829). However, he struggled to make a living and over the years was awarded £45 by the RLF. His letters cite ill health and miserly payments by a publisher, J. C. Spence, as reasons for his distress. On 23 Nov. 1837 at Holy Trinity church in Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire, he married Harriet Webb; they had five children although several died in infancy. A son was born in Paris in about 1839. The 1841 Census locates the family in London but by 1851 they were in Cheltenham. In 1861 Cliffe, by then a widower, was lodging in Ross, Herefordshire, and he died at Hentland in the same county on 14 Nov. 1863. His other works include Anecdotal Reminiscences of Distinguished Literary and Political Characters (1830) and two later poems, The Expatriated (1836) and The Pilgrim of Avon (1836). Both he and Harriet (as Mrs. Leigh Cliffe Wieles) wrote extensively for periodicals, mainly The Metropolitan Magazine and La Belle Assemblée. They also composed popular songs. (Harriet’s separate application to the RLF in 1846 was rejected.) Cliffe’s bibliography is complicated by a confusion with the hack writer and fantasist George Jones (1810-80). Cliffe dedicated The Pilgrim of Avon to Jones in surprisingly laudatory terms and critics assumed that “Leigh Cliffe” was Jones’s pseudonym. Jones applied to the RLF in 1846 and was rejected. (ancestry.co.uk 11 June 2025; findmypast.co.uk 11 June 2025; RLF files 444, 1133, 1148; Hereford Times 28 Nov. 1863; Julia Thomas, Shakespeare’s Shrine [2012]; EN2) SR
Other Names:
- Leigh Cliffe