Author: HUBAND, Willcocks
Biography:
HUBAND, Willcocks (c. 1776-1834: ancestry.co.uk)
He was the eldest son of Joseph Huband, a Dublin barrister and director of the Irish Grand Canal Company, and his wife Catherine Reynolds. He was probably born in 1776 but no record has been found. Huband graduated BA from Trinity College Dublin in 1797 and was admitted to the Middle Temple, London, on 16 Nov. 1796. (His first name is recorded as William in the Middle Temple records.) During his time studying law in London he took drawing lessons and published Critical and Familiar Notices on the Art of Etching on Copper in 1810. Huband was called to the bar in 1800 and established a law practice in Dublin. He became the commissioner in bankrupts in 1806. In the same year, probably in Dublin, he married Frances Macartney, the eldest daughter of Arthur Chichester Macartney; no record has been located. They had six children, including George Joseph Huband whose bookplate is in the 1831 BL copy of his father’s The Prompter. Huband died at Clifton, Gloucestershire, on 7 Mar. 1834 and was buried in the churchyard of St. Andrew’s, Clifton. Frances died on 6 Aug. 1868 at home in Herbert Street, Dublin. All six versions of his poem listed in this database under various titles include a dedication to an “early friend and associate,” the author of Familiar Epistles (1804). This was John Wilson Croker (q.v.), Huband’s contemporary and a student at Trinity College Dublin; Croker also studied law in London and practiced in Dublin. The 1804, 1805, 1810, and 1826 versions of the poem were issued anonymously but for the 1827-8 and 1831 versions Huband added “David Lyddal, Esq.” to the title pages and the epilogues slyly refer to “A Little Unknown (one David Lyddal).” It seems likely that the book, first published as Cursory Hints to Young Actors, began as a jeu d’esprit and Huband later experimented with different titles while adding layers of textual notes and other apparatus to the poem. (ancestry.co.uk 8 Apr. 2025; Catalogue of Graduates; MR [1826], 365-71; Burke, Heraldic Illustrations [1845]; Dublin Evening Post 10 Aug. 1868; Register of Admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple 2 [1849]; libraryireland.com 8 Apr. 2025) SR