Author: Haygarth, William
Biography:
HAYGARTH, William (1784-1825: ancestry.com)
He was baptised on 3 Mar. 1784 at Holy Trinity, Chester, Cheshire, the elder son of Sarah Vere (Widdons) and John Haygarth; his father was a famous physician based at the Chester Infirmary. He was educated at Chester School, then Rugby, then Trinity College Cambridge (matric 1800, BA 1805, MA 1808), and became a notable classicist; he was also a capable artist. From Aug. 1810 to Jan. 1811 he travelled in Greece. In Athens, where he met Byron (q.v.) in Jan. 1811, he started work on Greece, the poem that made his name. Although it was not published until three years later and was to some extent eclipsed by Byron’s Childe Harold, it was a lavish volume in quarto format with extensive notes, including passages from Haygarth’s journals, and engravings based on his own sketches. His watercolours and other sketches from Greece are now held by the Gennarian Library of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. After returning to England, Haygarth bought property in Sussex and in 1819 married Frances Parry; they had three sons, the last born after the death of his father. Besides Greece, Haygarth contributed four plates and notes to the second edition of Robert Walpole’s Memoirs relating to . . . Turkey (1818), and reviewed books on classical history for the Quarterly Review—for which he was considered but not in the end appointed as Editor in 1823. Haygarth died of consumption on 25 Sept. 1825 and was buried at St. Martin, Epsom, Surrey, on 3 Oct., with a memorial in the church. (ancestry.com 26 Mar. 2022; findmypast.com 26 Mar. 2022; ACAD; William Randel, “William Haygarth: Forgotten Philhellene,” Keats-Shelley Journal 9:2 [1960]: 86-90)