Author: Gaspey, Thomas
Biography:
GASPEY, Thomas (1788-1871: ODNB)
He was born at Hare Walk, Hoxton, London, on 31 Mar. 1788, the son of William Gaspey, a naval lieutenant, and his wife Ann Garratt. His parents had married on 1 Sept. 1777 at St. Sepulchre in Holborn, and Gaspey was baptised in St. Leonard, Shoreditch, on 20 Apr. 1788. As a young man he contributed verse to annual pocket books and from 1807 to Eugenius Roche’s (q.v.) monthly Literary Recreations. It may have been Roche who secured for Gaspey a position as parliamentary reporter for the Morning Post. He spent sixteen years with the newspaper before moving to the Courier as a sub-editor. On 1 Sept. 1811 in St. Sepulchre he married Ann Camp (d 1883); a son, William, was born in June 1812 and the couple had at least four more children. Gaspey published six novels in the 1820s and in 1828 he purchased a share of the Sunday Times and recruited contributors that greatly improved its quality. He served as a member of the council for the RLF. The 1851 Census shows Gaspey living with his wife at their home, 4 Ordnance Terrace in Shooter’s Hill, Kent, and he died there on 8 Dec. 1871, leaving effects of under £300. He was buried at Greenwich on 15 Dec. Gaspey’s numerous other publications include The Pictorial History of France (1843, written with G. M. Bussey), Life and Times of the Good Lord Cobham (1843), The History of Smithfield (1852?), and History of England, From the Text of Hume and Smollett (no date). His “Many Coloured Life; or, Tales of Woe and Touches of Mirth (1842) includes his early poem, “Epitaph for the Tablet Erected over the Marquis of Anglesey’s Leg,” which has sometimes been misattributed to George Canning (q.v.). (ODNB 5 Sept. 2024; ancestry.co.uk 5 Sept. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 5 Sept. 2024; EN2)