Author: Nicklin, Edward
Biography:
NICKLIN, Edward (b 1732? d 1805?)
It is likely, but uncertain, that Edward Nicklin, author of Pride and Ignorance (1770), was baptized at Holy Trinity, Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, on 18 Oct 1732, a son of John Nicklin, and that he is identical with the Captain Edward Nicklin who died, “universally esteemed,” at Harborne, near Birmingham, on Christmas day 1805. Contemporary marginalia in the New York Public Library’s copy of The Repository: or Treasury of Politics and Literature (1771) identifies the author of Pride and Ignorance as “the Captain in [the] Warwickshire Militia.”. An Edward Nicklin of Warwickshire was commissioned Lieutenant in the 75th Regiment of Foot in May 1759, and, in Nov. 1778, Captain in the Warwickshire militia. The only other trace of Captain Nicklin is his subscription (2 copies) of Anna Sawyer’s (q.v.) Poems on Various Subjects (1801). In addition to Pride and Ignorance (published 26 Mar. 1770), Edward Nicklin authored three anonymous works that are erroneously attributed to Henry Man (q.v.): The Trifler (1775, 1777, 1779); History of Sir Geoffry Restless (1791); and Flights of Inflatus (1791). The title pages of the latter two books read, “By the Author of The Trifler,” while advertisements in Aris’s Birmingham Gazette (6 Sept. 1774, 10 May 1784) identify the author of the “The Trifler” as “Edward Nicklin”. It may be relevant that Captain Nicklin left a legacy to “Bucks Lodge in Birmingham as a Token of my Respect for that Society of which I formerly have been a Member.” Several times, Edward Nicklin the author expresses affection for his club. (ancestry.com 5 May 2023; PROB 11/1449; London Chronicle, 3-6 Nov. 1798; J. Money, Experience and Identity: Birmingham and the West Midlands, 1760-1800 [1977], 138) JC