Author: Merle, William Henry
Biography:
MERLE, William Henry (1791-1878: ODNB)
Merle was born on 18 Sept. 1791 and baptised at St. Bartholomew-the-Great, London, on 16 Nov., the son of a London banker and JP, William Merle, and his wife Elizabeth Halcrow. He was educated at Eton. The defining events of his life appear to have been his friendship with the great caricaturist George Cruikshank (1792-1878), which began in 1814 and lasted over sixty years; and the reversals of fortune that followed upon the death of his father in 1822. A capable draughtsman, Merle supplied Cruikshank with ideas and sketches for prints; Cruikshank in turn illustrated some of Merle’s work, including Odds and Ends. In the 1820s and 30s while he was trying to recover some of his lost inheritance, Merle turned to writing for newspapers and periodicals. He also published some verse, listed here, and two novels, Glenlonely (1837) and Melton de Mowbray, or, The Banker’s Son (1838). A final late novel is Bathurst (1850). On 28 July 1829 he married Mary Norman at Wrington, Somerset; they later inherited her family’s estate, Iwood House at Congresbury, Somerset. They do not appear to have had children and she died in Paris on 24 Aug. 1851. Merle made a second marriage to Ann Norman (1825-94) of Kenn Court, Somerset, at St. John the Evangelist, Clifton, Gloucestershire, on 16 June 1853. (The two wives were not sisters but probably cousins; they claimed Huguenot ancestry.) At some point he adopted the name “de Merle,” which appears in the death notices. In his later years he was Lord of the Manor of Kenn and a deputy lieutenant for Somerset. He died of pneumonia at his home at Ward Hill, Rowledge, Frensham, Surrey, on 29 Sept. 1878 and was buried at St. Andrew’s, Congresbury. He left an estate of over £50,000. Ann de Merle had a chapel in St. Andrew’s restored and renamed the Merle Chapel in 1880; it remained a private chapel attached to the Iwood estate until 1952. She died on 25 May 1894 and was also buried at Congresbury. (ODNB 31 May 2023; findmypast.com 31 May 2023; Morning Advertiser 26 Aug. 1851; Illustrated London News 12 Oct. 1878; Chris Short, A Guide to St. Andrew’s Church, ycccart.co.uk) HJ
Other Names:
- W. H. Merle