Author: Mickle, William Julius
Biography:
MICKLE, William Julius (1734-88: ODNB)
He was born on 29 Sept. 1734 in Langholm, Dumfriesshire, son of the parish minister Alexander Meikle and his second wife, Julia Henderson. He was baptised on 2 Oct. 1735. Mickle's father later acquired a brewery in Edinburgh and moved the family there. After attending high school in the city, William joined the brewery; on the death of his father in 1757, he became the owner. But his ambition was to be a writer. In 1763 when the business suffered losses and eventually collapsed, he anglicized the spelling of his surname and moved to London to try to make a living by his pen--and to attract patronage. Attempts to write for the stage were not successful. For a time (1765-72) he supported himself as a corrector for the Clarendon Press in Oxford. The Concubine (1767, later renamed Sir Martyn) saw several early editions, but his most significant work was the translation of Camoens's epic The Lusiad which he published by subscription in 1776. In 1779 he took up an administrative post with the British navy in Lisbon. On 3 June 1782 at St. Andrew's, Holborn, he married Mary Tomkins (Tompkins), daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Tompkins of Oxfordshire. They settled in Wheatley, Oxfordshire, and had one son, Charles Julius Mickle, who was baptised on 1 Nov. 1784. He died after a short illness on 25 Oct. 1788, and was buried in the churchyard at St. Nicholas's church on 6 Nov. He had made a will on 6 Feb. 1788 in which he stated that Robert Tompkins had borrowed £700 from him. The will sought to secure his estate for the use of his wife and child and expresses distrust of Tompkins who he fears will "waste and destroy [his] just and lawful property." Mickle wished his son to enter holy orders but likely there was not enough to provide for his education. One of Mickle's executors, William Ballantyne, applied to the RLF on Charles's behalf in 1794 and was awarded 5 guineas. (Charles later emigrated to Canada and died at Guelph in 1859.) Mickle's Poetical Works, with a memoir, appeared in 1799. (ODNB 10 Apr. 2020; ancestry.co.uk 29 Jan. 2025; RLF file 28 [as Miekle]) SR
Other Names:
- Mickle
- William Julius Meikle