Author: Hinckley, John
Biography:
HINCKLEY, John (c 1765-1814: ancestry.com)
The author John Hinckley, aged 49, did not have a parish burial but was interred as a dissenter at Bunhill Fields, London, on 5 Dec. 1814, under sensational circumstances. He ended his life as a wealthy miser and recognised eccentric who lived alone in chambers at Gray’s Inn and died of natural causes some months before his body was found—by then so badly decomposed that it had to be identified by its clothing. The inquest recorded a verdict of death “by the Visitation of God.” But he had been for many years a successful merchant, a resident of Westminster, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He may well have been the John Hinckley who married Sarah Moore at St. Margaret, Westminster, in 1793, but no baptismal records have been found for children and there is no mention of a widow at the time of his death. He did have a brother, Henry (b 1759), who lived nearby on Guildford St. Their parents were Henry and Ann Hinckley; newspaper articles described them as “a most respectable family.” Henry was baptised in a C of E church in the City of London, but no baptismal record has been found for his younger brother John. Besides the anti-Catholic “didacto-dramatic Poem” Emancipation (1812), which Hinckley dedicated to the Prince Regent, between 1800 and 1804 he published translations from German or French: a novel, two volumes of travels, and a history of the Venetian Republic. (ancestry.com 7 Jul. 2022; findmypast.com 7 Jul. 2022; London Gazette Mar. 1808; MR 68 [1812] 433; OUCH 10 Dec. 1814; European Magazine 66 [1814], 552-3)