Author: Colton, Charles Caleb
Biography:
COLTON, Charles Caleb (1777-1832: ODNB)
He was baptised Caleb Colton on 11 Dec. 1777 at St. Andrew’s, Shrivenham, Berkshire, one of at least three children of Rev. Barfoot Colton (1736-1803), sometime canon of Salisbury, and Elizabeth Collins (1749-1836), who had married in 1768. He was educated at Eton where he was a King’s Scholar and at King’s College Cambridge (matric. 1799, BA 1801, MA 1804). He held the college livings of Prior’s Portion, Tiverton, Devon (1801-17), and Kew and Petersham, Surrey (1817-28), but was removed for non-residence and non-performance. He was a hunter, gambler, and sometime wine merchant, and fled abroad several times to escape creditors, first to America and finally to Paris. He continued to gamble, with varying success. Some reports describe him living in squalor; others have him assembling an art collection and winning £25,000. Eventually he was reduced to poverty and required an operation, the prospect of which so disturbed him that he shot himself on 28 Apr. 1832 while visiting Major Markham Sherwill at Fontainebleau. He left an estate valued at under £450 to his brother’s widow. He never married. Sherwill edited the posthumous Thoughts in Rhyme and Modern Antiquity. In addition to the works listed here Colton printed (as C.C.C.) a short poem for private circulation, Irregular Ode, on the Death of Lord Byron (Paris: F. Didot 1825, BNP but not identified as his), which was later reprinted in some British newspapers, periodicals and annuals (e.g. MH 14 Mar. 1825, Friendship’s Offering [1826], 225-6). Three of his prose works were also widely read. Remarks Critical and Moral on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan (1819), like many similar encounters, marvelled at the poetry and struggled with the morals. Lacon: or Many Things in Few Words (1820-2), a miscellaneous collection of aperçus and short essays, was frequently reprinted and proved popular although Byron thought it said “few things in many words.” His Narrative of the French Revolution in 1830 (1830) still retains some value as an English eye-witness account of events in Paris in late July 1830. (ODNB 13 Jan. 2024; ancestry.co.uk 13 Jan. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 13 Jan. 2024; CCEd; LES, 3 May 1828; Ballot 6 May 1832; GM June 1832, 564-6; N&Q 24 Mar. 1894, 230-1) AA
Other Names:
- the late Rev. C. C. Colton
- the Rev. C. Colton
- the Revd. C. C. Colton