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Author: Fish, Howard

Biography:

FISH, Howard (1789-1830: ancestry.co.uk)

He was baptised Robert Howard Fish on 9 Nov. 1789 at St Giles, Holborn, the eldest child of Robert Fish and Alice Croft, who had married in the same church earlier that year. He grew up in nearby Marylebone ("Ode to Mary-Le-Bone Fields," Amatory, and Other Verses, 13-14) and became a watchmaker. He was living at 34 Greek Street, Soho, in 1822, and wrote several times to Richard Carlile, the radical printer, who was serving three years in Dorchester Gaol for blasphemy and seditious libel: Carlile printed part of their correspondence in The Republican that year. He also made small financial contributions to the fund for Carlile. Later that year, Carlile would advertise the remaining copies of Fish's  Wrongs of Man alongside works by Thomas Paine in the Examiner. Neglected by literary history and studies of the radical underworld, he nevertheless deserves a footnote for his incendiary millenarial atheist rhetoric and merits a place alongside other post-war radicals:  “Reform ! reform ! or like Gomorrah die”  ("Epistle to a Friend," 1817);  “O worse than rattle-snake, that dare profane/The minds of millions, for a little gain” (Wrongs of Man); “Priestcraft is, as it has always been, the grand corner-stone of political juggling” (Letter to Carlile, 4 Feb. 1822). He died on 2 Apr. 1830 at his residence in Mill Street, Hanover Square, and was buried at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, leaving a small estate to his parents and sisters.(ancestry.co.uk 11 May 2021; Republican 15 Feb., 6 Dec. 1822; Examiner 13 Oct. 1822; Morning Post 7 Apr. 1830) AA

 

Books written (2):

London: Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1817
London: Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1819