Author: Masters, Martin Kedgwin
Biography:
MASTERS, Martin Kedgwin (1770-1836: ancestry.com)
Shoberl calls him "a surgeon and apothecary at Watford." The son of Elizabeth and Martin Masters, he was baptised at Maidstone, Kent, in 1770 and apprenticed to a surgeon at Watford in 1784. By his first wife Anne Tankard (d 1820), whom he married at St. George's, Hanover Square, London, on 18 Sept. 1794, he had at least three children baptised at Watford. With his second wife Mary Ann Priest (married in 1823) he had six children. Masters had literary friends, notably William Godwin (q.v.) and his first wife Mary Wollstonecraft. His single volume of verse and one play (a comedy, Lost and Found), were moderately successful, but he neglected his profession for literature and made some bad investments. Eventually he was obliged to enter Christchurch Workhouse, Southwark, where he died on 26 May 1836. (Shoberl; ancestry.com 18 Mar. 2020; edpopehistory.co.uk 1 May 2025; Sharon Ingersole, "Martin Kedgwin Masters," Kent Family History Society Newsletter [Aug. 2022], 7-8; information from David Radcliffe and AA) HJ