Author: Hart, William Nevile
Biography:
HART, William Nevile (1772-1815: ancestry.com)
He was born on 19 Jul. 1772 and baptised William Neville on 12 Aug. at St. James’s, Piccadilly, the second son of William Neville (Blondeau) Hart (1741-1804)--banker, MP, and Knight of the Order of St. Stanislaus—and his second wife Elizabeth Aspinwall (d 1783). Their son used the spelling Nevile, however, on his later title-pages, perhaps to differentiate himself from his eminent father. He joined the army and rose eventually to the rank of Captain in the 79th Regiment of infantry. He clearly enjoyed the polite social amusements of the places where his regiment was stationed. After contributing epigrams and light verse under the initials W. N. H. to the Monthly Mirror, he was encouraged by friends to publish his first collection, including some prose letters to the editor, in 1798. A second collection, Good Things, partly Selected, partly Original (1803) has not been seen and may or may not be largely prose. On 11 Feb. 1806 he married Mary Miller of Barking, Essex, at St. Luke, Chelsea. The Goodness of God (1806) also includes some prose meditations and advice “to the young unmarried man and woman.” The couple had at least three children, including a son (Henry Cornelius, born at Slough in Buckinghamshire) who graduated from Trinity College Cambridge and became a clergyman, and two daughters who died in 1827 and 1836. Hart himself died at Acton, Middlesex, on 5 June 1815; the cause of death is not known. (ancestry.com 13 Feb. 2022; findmypast.com 13 Feb. 2022; “William Neville Hart” [father], Wikipedia 13 Feb. 2022; ACAD; SJC 13 Jun. 1815) HJ