Author: Fleming, Wilmington
Biography:
FLEMING, Wilmington (1791-1839: ancestry.co.uk)
pseudonym Timothy Catspaw
His place of birth and parents are unknown. In his RLF application he stated that he knew Capel Lofft (q.v.) in his youth. In 1810 Lofft, as "C. L.," sent in to the Monthly Mirror a poem on the Fate of Genius by J. Wilmington Fleming Gordon who had not had the advantages of an education. Lofft also wrote to him at Cripplegate. Fleming did occasionally publish as "J. Wilmington Fleming" but there are no baptism matches for him as "Gordon." His first independent publication, The Deserted Cottage (1816), is rare and attracted little attention. He contributed to the radical periodical the Black Dwarf as well as to the Literary Chronicle and Morning Advertiser in 1820s, most notably (and somewhat unusually) with a eulogy of Castlereagh in 1822. By 1824 he was living in Holborn and had been declared insolvent under the name of John Wilmington Fleming. Thereafter he made many appeals for financial assistance: to the RLF (1825-1838), to the public (Literary ChronicleMay and June 1828), and to other writers (Caroline Lamb, Jane Porter, Charles Dickens). He may have attempted to blackmail (if only by insinuation) Caroline Lamb. He had sent her a poem on Byron’s death in March 1825 (reprinted in The Destroying Angel [1825] 21-3) and she invited him to stay at Brocket Hall. She unwisely lent him some of her diaries (which he copied) but managed to retrieve them on payment of £10. His final publication, a satire, Civic Groans (1830), like his other works, passed unnoticed. He seems to have been liked by other writers but was clearly manipulative. He announced to the RLF that his aged and sick mother would end up in the workhouse if funds were not forthcoming and it was only his love for her that kept him alive: “long ago I should have become a Chatterton.” Towards the end of his life, he did publish “Recollections of Lady Caroline Lamb” in The Casket of Literature, Science and Entertainment (22 Apr. 1837) but this also passed unnoticed. He died 24 January at 16 Plumtree Court, Shoe Lane, Holborn, and was buried at St. Andrew’s. (ancestry.co.uk 29 Aug. 2021; Monthly Mirror Nov. 1810, 387-8; Bath Chronicle 29 Feb. 1816; Public Ledger 15 Dec. 1824; Morning Advertiser 12 Nov. 1830, 22 Apr. 1837; RLF, 1/541; Paul Douglass, Lady Caroline Lamb [2004], 266-8, 276-8; Spenserians; Folger Library, Ms. Y.C. 1848) AA
Other Names:
- J. Wilmington Fleming