Author: Gwilliam, John
Biography:
GWILLIAM, John (c. 1787-1857: death certificate)
A shadowy figure, he may have been the John Gwilliam who was baptised in the Percy Chapel, St. Pancras on 29 May 1787, the son of John and Ann Gwilliam. He became a prolific writer who contributed extensively to the short-lived Poetical Magazine (1809-11) and The Scourge (1811-16) although his earliest published poems appeared in The Cabinet in about 1808. George Daniel (q.v.) included him in his Modern Dunciad, describing him as “the Cutter of Coleman-Street” whose works “made but one step from the printer’s to the pastry-cook’s.” Little is known about his life, but likely he was the John Gwilliam who appears in ancestry records as incarcerated several times in the Marshalsea prison for debtors. Insolvency proceedings posted in the London Gazette in 1833 give a string of addresses for him, mainly in Islington, and identify him as "Accountant, Author, Picture Dealer, and General Dealer." No marriage record has been located but his wife's first name was Anne. She died of ulcerated scrofula at 8 Charlotte St., Islington, on 10 Dec. 1849, aged 52. He was recorded in the 1851 Census as a widower living alone at the same address; his occupation was "accountant and agent." He died of "paralysis" and "exhaustion" in the Islington workhouse on 31 Jan. 1857; the death certificate gives his age as 70. (ancestry.co.uk 29 July 2019, 6 Feb. 2024; Alvin Sullivan, ed., British Literary Magazines: The Romantic Age, 1789-1836 [1983]; London Gazette 30 Apr. 1833; contribution from AA)