Author: Houston, Thomas
Biography:
HOUSTON, Thomas, (c. 1777-1803: O’Donoghue)
Pseudonym Cuthbert Cudgel
He was a brassfounder by profession, said to have been born in Ireland (but records are lacking). He established himself in Newcastle upon Tyne and rapidly produced poems and plays, mostly comical. Besides the titles listed here, he contributed to periodicals in Edinburgh and elsewhere, and published some separate titles too short for this bibliography, starting with The Woes of Erin (8 pages, Edinburgh, 1798), as well as Term-Day, a comedy, in prose. On 16 Feb. 1801 he married Hannah Hopper at St. Andrew, Newcastle; their son John was born on 11 Jul. 1802 and baptised at All Saints, Newcastle, on 25 Apr. 1804. Houston advertised a proposal to publish more poems by subscription, in twelve numbers, but did not live to carry out the task. He was admitted to the Newcastle infirmary in the autumn of 1803, died there on 27 Dec., and was buried in the adjacent burial ground. His final collection was published for the benefit of his widow. Although a correspondent of the Newcastle Magazine in Mar. 1821 suggested that he would be a good subject for a biographical notice, according to Welford no-one took up the challenge. (O’Donoghue; findmypast.com 12 Dec. 2022; Richard Welford, Men of Mark ‘twixt Tyne and Tweed [1895], 575-7) HJ