Author: Cumberland, George
Biography:
CUMBERLAND, George (1754-1848: ODNB)
Cumberland is known primarily as an amateur watercolour landscape artist of the so-called Bristol School, and for his friendship with William Blake (q.v.), whom he first met in 1784. The St Matthew Church, Bethnal Green, parish record states that he was 19 days old when he was baptized on 22 Dec. 1754, the son of George Cumberland (d 1771) and his wife, Elizabeth Balchen (1720-99). A Royal Academy Schools record, however, gives “19 yrs 27 Novr last” as his date of birth. For six years, from age fifteen, he was a clerk at the Royal Exchange Assurance company. On 30 Nov. 1772 he entered the Royal Academy Schools where he was instructed in print making, knowledge he shared with Blake years later. In 1784, Elizabeth Mole of Old London Street directed in her will that her primary legatee, George’s aunt, Susan Cumberland (d 1789), should, upon her own death, transfer to him a third share of the dividends and interest from £18,000 held in trust by Mole’s executors. His aunt instead gave the money to George’s brother Richard (1752-1825), probably because in 1787 George had travelled to Italy with his landlady, Elizabeth (1758–1837), and her six children; she was the wife of Benjamin Cooper (b 1749). In Feb. 1797 at Paris, Cumberland settled with Elizabeth’s husband for an unstated amount. Elizabeth appears not to have divorced Cooper, but she now signed herself “Eliz. Cumberland.” Cumberland and Elizabeth had five children: Lavinia (1788-1868); George (1790-1878); Aurora (1792-1865); Sydney (1795-1868); and Elizabeth Martha (1798-1885). From 1790, when they returned to England, they lived successively in Southampton, Windsor, Bristol, and Bath. His books of poetry received mostly negative reviews. The CR’s writer detected “something of genius,” but reviewers in MR, EM, and AR were unmoved by his poems’ lyricism and Romantic sensibility. Cumberland also published several works on fossils and on Italian engravings. He was a cousin of the dramatist Richard Cumberland and of Henry Man (qq.v). He died at his home, 1 Culver Street, Bath, on 8 Aug. 1848. (ODNB 21 May 2023; Royal Academy Archive KEE/1/1/1/13; BL Add MSS 36498-36515; PROB 11/1124; C. Black, ed., Cumberland Letters [1912]; Man family documents: www.manfamily.org 10 May 2023) JC