Author: Feist, Charles
Biography:
FEIST, Charles (1795-1856: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 12 Apr. 1795 and baptised at Beverley Independent, Yorks., the son of the Rev. Peter Feist, non-conformist minister, and his wife Margaret Soulby. He attended Beverley Grammar school and then went to work in a solicitor’s office in London. He was persuaded by a fellow-clerk, Tom Weston, to join David Fisher’s theatre company where he was a comedian for five years. He then became a schoolmaster in Swaffham, Norfolk, and in 1818 he moved to Mill Hill, Newmarket, Suffolk, as proprietor of a school which educated many local jockeys. His other publications include a primer and other schoolbooks; a melodrama (1823); and Elegiac Lines for Queen Charlotte (1818) too short to be included in this bibliography. He was also a racing correspondent for the Sunday Times and eventually moved to London in 1842 where he wrote for various newspapers on racing matters. Some contemporaries and later sources thought he was the model for Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield (1850). He had married Catherine Elizabeth Barre (1798-1876), a fellow comedian in Fisher’s company, on 14 Mar. 1818 at Bungay, Suffolk. He died on 10 Jul. 1856 at 10 Granville Square, Clerkenwell. (ancestry.co.uk 13 Mar. 2021; findmypast.co.uk 13 Mar. 2021; Ipswich Journal 4 Apr. 1818; John Bull 12 May 1833; York Herald 27 Dec. 1856; Bury and Norwich Post 13 Jun. 1876; Copsey 1:183) AA
Other Names:
- C. Feist