Author: Farhill, Edward
Biography:
FARHILL, Edward (1800-70: findmypast.com)
He was the youngest son of Mary (Wilson) and John Farhill, who had married in 1784. His father and at least one of his brothers were educated at Eton and Cambridge. Edward probably went to Eton but for unknown reasons did not go on to university. The family was wealthy; the father, born in Chichester, became a lawyer and as a senior civil servant acted as Secretary to the Commission for Reducing the National Debt. Their London address was in Mortimer St. in Fitzrovia. Edward, born in 1800, was baptised at St. Marylebone, London, in Jan. 1801. They appear all to have been well educated and cosmopolitan: when his independent unmarried sister Mary (1784-1854) died at her villa in Florence, Edward made arrangements for her funeral and her bilingual monument. Farhill's work clearly shows his francophilia: the 1835 volume, to which he added his 8-page Tribute to the Memory of Lafayette (first published in a dual-language edition in Paris in 1834), includes many translations from French as well as original verse, and was dedicated to the Duchess of Kent. As an adult he made his home in Bath but at some point settled in Paris. He does not appear ever to have married. He died in Boulogne on 23 Oct. 1870. (findmypast.com 5 Jul. 2021; London Gazette 14 Jul. 1871; Eton College Register 1753-1790; ACAD; findagrave.com 5 Jul. 2021) HJ