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Author: Doyle, Francis Hastings

Biography:

DOYLE, Francis Hastings (1810-88: ODNB)

He was born at Nun Appleton, Yorkshire, on 22 Aug. 1810 and baptised on 3 Nov. at Bolton Percy, the son of Major-General Sir Francis Hastings (1783-1839) and Diana Elizabeth Milner (1782-1828), who had married at St. Marylebone, London, in 1804. His father was created baronet in 1828; on his death in 1839 Francis Hastings Doyle inherited the title. He  went to school at Eton in 1823 where he was friends with Arthur Hallam (q.v.) and with William Gladstone whom he assisted in editing The Eton Miscellany (1827), to which he contributed verse. He proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied classics (matric. 1828, BA 1832) and to All Souls (Fellow 1835-45 and 1872-77, BCL 1843, MA 1867, DCL 1877). He was called to the bar in 1837 and was Receiver-General of Customs 1846-69 and Commissioner of Customs 1869-83 but he had extensive literary interests and was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1867 (after Matthew Arnold). Two courses of these lectures were printed in 1869 and 1877. Miscellaneous Verses (1834), reissued with additional poems in 1840 and a second edition in 1841, was followed by The Two Destinies (1844), The Vision of Er, the Pamphylian (1850), The Return of the Guards (1866), and several translations of classical authors, most notably Oedipus, King of Thebes (1849). He was included in A. H. Miles, The Poets and Poetry of the Century (1892) with a life by A. H. Japp (4: 103-8). Towards the end of his life he produced a mixture of autobiography and critical opinions, Reminiscences and Opinions (1886). He married Sydney Williams Wynn (1819-67) on 14 Dec. 1844 at St. George’s, Hanover Square, London. They had at least five children. He died on 8 June 1888 at 46 Davies Street, Berkeley Square, London. His wife had predeceased him in 1867. (ODNB 4 Nov. 2022; ancestry.co.uk 4 Nov. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 4 Nov. 2022; Morning Post 16 Dec. 1844, 29 Nov. 1767, 9 June 1888) AA

 

Books written (1):

London: John Taylor, 1834