Author: Fenton, Alexander Wilfrid
Biography:
FENTON, Alexander Wilfrid (1805-67: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 19 Aug. 1805, the son of the Rev. John Fenton, Vicar of Torpenhow and later Rector of Ousby, Cumberland, and his wife Anne Livingstone. He was educated at Penrith Grammar School and in 1824 proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, but appears to have left without taking a degree. With his younger brother George Livingstone Fenton (q.v.), he published in Penrith Midnight in London (1833), for which he wrote the Preface and the ambitious (though meandering) lead poem of the same title. In 1841 he was living at his parents' house in Ousby and in 1851 he was a lodger in St. Bees, describing himself as a spirit merchant. He appears not to have lived up to early promise. By 1861 he was living in Holme Low, Cumberland, with his wife, children, and mother-in-law, but no civil or church record can be traced of the marriage. He died on 26 Jan. 1867, with his occupation given as wine and spirit merchant, and was buried at St. Paul’s, Sollith, Cumberland, leaving his small estate of under £200 to be administered by his sister Caroline. His wife, if indeed they did marry, was Mary Diana Fournier (1829/31-68) from Crosthwaite who, according to her daughter’s testimony at her inquest, had suffered from "intemperance" three years prior to her death, and died from injuries arising from excessive drinking in Coleridge Street, Liverpool in February 1868 . (ancestry.co.uk 26 Jun. 2021; Carlisle Patriot 19 Jan. and 15 June 1833; Staffordshire Advertiser 26 Jan. 1867; Liverpool Daily Post 21 Feb. 1868) AA
Other Names:
- A. W. Fenton