Author: Linley, William
Biography:
LINLEY, William (1771-1835: ODNB)
He was born on 27 Jan. 1771 at Bath, the youngest child of Thomas Linley (1733-95), musician and music teacher, and his wife Mary Johnson (1729-1820). The family moved to London in the mid 1770s and he was sent to school first at Harrow, and later at St. Paul’s, where he became a friend of Charles Leftley (q.v., 1771-98), whose works he edited in 1814. In 1790 he joined the East India Company and spent five years in India, in various clerical positions. On his return to England in 1795, he produced a number of musical works and was appointed composer at Drury Lane theatre by his sister's husband, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, in 1796. His compositions proved only moderately successful; in reduced circumstances, he returned in 1800 to India, where he obtained various positions as paymaster and treasurer which enabled him to restore his finances and return to England around 1807. He published two novels, Forbidden Apartments (1800) and The Adventures of Ralph Reybridge (1809) and collected the poetry he had written in India. It formed the second part of his edition of his friend Charles Linley’s poetry, Sonnets, Odes, and Other Poems (1814) with a dividing title page, Poems on Various Subjects, Chiefly Written in India. A few poems, "Outward Bound," "Homeward Bound," and "Monthly Sketches" retain some interest but most of the occasional verse is commonplace. His collection of Shakespeare’s Dramatic Songs (1815-1816) consists mostly of his undistinguished settings but also includes Purcell, Arne, and others, and is still of value. He continued to compose, was well-known in London society and numbered among his friends William Lisle Bowles (q.v.), Tom Moore (q.v.), Samuel Wesley, and many others. He died on 6 May 1835 at his rooms in 3 Furnival’s Inn and was buried at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden. (ODNB 3 Jan. 2021; R. B. Gardiner, Admission Registers of St. Paul’s School, from 1748 to 1876 [1884] 185; EN II; Star 29 Jul. 1814; Watkins (1816); Morning Chronicle 11 May 1835; W. L. Bowles, "Recollections of the late William Linley, Esq.," Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette 11 June 1835; GM June 1835, 574-6) AA