Author: Mackay, Charles
Biography:
MACKAY, Charles (1812-89: ODNB)
Mackay was a prolific journalist and a writer in many genres. The son of a bandmaster in the Royal Artillery, George Mackay, and his wife Amelia Cargill, he was born in Perth, Scotland, on 26 Mar. 1812. His mother died when he was very young and his father, retired on half-pay and moving about to make a living, sent his son to friends or family in Newhaven, then to Woolwich and London, where he had some schooling and published his first poem in The Casket at the age of 13. At 14 he joined his father in Brussels, learnt French and German—also some Italian and Spanish—and began submitting contributions to periodicals in both English and French. They returned to London in 1832, Charles determined to live by his pen. In May 1834 when he made his first application to the RLF, he had a wife and child to support. The identity of his first wife is uncertain but that child may have died young, since in 1877 he claimed to have only three living children, two boys born about 1842 and 1844 who were working out of the country, and a daughter Mary (1855-1924, nicknamed Minnie) who published under the pseudonym Marie Corelli. Further marriages took place about 1845 and 1861, to Rose Henrietta Vale (d 1859) and Mary Elizabeth (or Ellen) Mills (d 1876). Mackay was much in demand as a journalist, editor, and author. He worked mainly in London, but for a few years (1844-7) in Glasgow, where the university awarded him an LLD in 1846. He published prodigiously: among other things, a History of London (1838), a guide to The Thames and its Tributaries (1840), a novel, Longbeard, Lord of London (1841), a collection of essays, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions (3 vols, 1841), a philosophical work, Egeria (1850), Songs for Music(1856), Collected Songs (1859), and two sets of memoirs (1877, 1877). In 1862 he was awarded a civil list pension of £100 p.a. for services to literature, but he struggled to make ends meet and applied again several times to the RLF, which gave generous assistance (£290 altogether, 1877-83). He died at home in Brompton, London, on 24 Dec. 1889 and was buried at Kensal Green on 2 Jan. 1890. (ODNB 11 Feb. 2023; RLF #792; findmypast.com 11 Feb. 2023; Orlando 11 Feb. 2023) HJ