Author: Montagu, Henry Wilkinson
Biography:
MONTAGU, Henry Wilkinson (c. 1801-62: findmypast.com)
No birth record has been found. In the 1851 Census he gave his age as 50 and his birthplace as Marylebone, London, but after his death, in an application to the RLF, his widow gave his date of birth as 24 May (year not given) and the place as Lancashire. Nothing is known of his early life. The ambitious beginning of his literary career was the tragic play Montmorency, published with a few minor poems and described on the title-page as “The First of a Series of Historical and Other Dramas.” In the absence of encouragement, no further plays appeared and he became perforce a bookseller’s hack, the anonymous author of lives of Napoleon, Wellington, and Nelson, and other potboilers. He understood the value of visual illustration and often worked with (Isaac) Robert Cruikshank (1789-1856), notably on an annotated edition of The Devil’s Walk by Coleridge and Southey, qq.v. (1830). He made his first application to the RLF in 1831 as a reputable writer with a substantial list of works but struggling to find commissions; one of his supporters mentioned that his parents had died and that he was supporting a sister. They awarded £10 in 1831 and 1832, only £5 in 1833 and 1834, and £10 again in 1839, 1858, 1859, and 1862—the final payment going to his widow who had described herself and their 19-year-old son as “entirely without provision.” Montagu was declared bankrupt in 1842 but from 1843 at least until 1851 and possibly longer he had a steady job as an editor with the Pictorial Times and its sequel, The Lady’s Newspaper and Poetical Times. He married Janet Agnes Selina Irving on 10 Apr. 1841 at St. Luke’s, Chelsea. Their son Henry Irving Montagu was born on 20 Nov. 1842 and baptised on 17 Jan. 1847. Montagu died in London on 28 May 1862. (findmypast.com 29 June 2023; RLF # 707; London Gazette 21 Aug. 1842)
Other Names:
- H.W. Montagu