Author: Hood, Thomas
Biography:
HOOD, Thomas (1799-1845: ODNB)
The comic writer Thomas Hood's father, also Thomas, a Presbyterian born in Scotland, was a bookseller and publisher in London in the firm of Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe; his mother, Elizabeth Sands, belonged to a family of engravers. The only boy in a family of five children, he was born in the Poultry, London, on 23 May 1799. Having been schooled at Prospect House and Alfred House academies, and (following his father’s death) at a day school, at about the age of 14 he briefly entered a counting house, for a time learnt the engraver's trade, and began to contribute to literary magazines. In 1821 he was launched on his journalistic career by the offer of a post as sub-editor for the London Magazine, where he made some close friends, notably Lamb, Reynolds (qq.v.), Hazlitt, and De Quincey. On 5 May 1825 at Saint Botolph Aldersgate, he married Reynolds's sister Jane (b 1795), with whom he had two children who survived infancy: Frances Freeling Hood, named for the conservative secretary of the post office, and Thomas Hood. He suffered from poor health and, despite his writing for some of the most popular magazines and annuals and periodically publishing selections from his work in volume form, he could barely make a living. From 1835 to 1840 the family lived in Europe to reduce expenses. When a friend, without prompting, appealed in his favour to the RLF in 1841, the Fund responded with £50 and a sympathetic note. In Feb. 1841, Hood proudly returned the grant, but in May “unexpected combinations” caused him to revoke his decision. He died in London on 3 May 1845, his wife in 1846; they are buried in Kensal Green cemetery. (ODNB 5 Apr. 2019; ancestry.com 21 Feb. 2025; RLF file 1022; Dr Williams’ Library, National Archives RG4/4663) HJ, JC