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Author: Paynter, David William

Biography:

PAYNTER, David William (1791-1823: ODNB)

He was baptised on 4 Mar. 1791 at St. Ann’s, Manchester, the son of Richard Walter Paynter (1751-1811), attorney, and his wife Sarah Withnall (1760-1832), who had married in the Cathedral, Manchester, in 1783. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School under the celebrated High Master, Charles Lawson (1728-1807), with a view to entering medicine, but preferred poetry and drama and soon began to mix in Manchester literary circles. He published an early novel, The History and Adventures of Godfrey Ranger (1813). He was a friend of James Watson (q.v.) and edited his literary remains as The Spirit of the Doctor (1820)--to which he added several of his own pieces under the title “Hours of Trim.” In a meandering, malevolent but amusing review of The Muse in Idleness  (1819) and Manchester poetry generally, James Crossley termed him the “Commemorator of Shakespeare, Professor of the Vagrant Laws, and Poet Laureat to the Manchester Philanthropical Society” whose work could only give unwanted encouragement to the “commercial book-keepers, printers’ devils and attorneys’ clerks of Manchester” (Blackwoods, Apr. 1821, 75).  He married Mary Richardson Kennedy on 16 Feb. 1813 at St. John’s, Manchester. They had at least four children,  three of whom survived him. In 1819 he spent some time in Lancaster Gaol for debt  (“this college of practical philosophy,” “Columbary of St George,” “Hours of Trim” 29, 34).  He died at Manchester on 14 Mar. 1823 and was buried at nearby Blackley. After his death Thomas Stanhope Stott applied to the RLF on behalf of his widow and orphans. She received £25 in July 1824. The RLF file (and Ancestry trees) incorrectly lists his widow as Sarah, possibly confusing her with the daughter of that name. A posthumous work, The Wife of Florence; A Tragedy in Five Acts (1823), was published by subscription for her benefit and appears to exist in a single copy at Cornell. (ODNB 8 June 2023; ancestry.co.uk 8 June 2023; findmypast.co.uk 10 June 2023; RLF, 1/518; James Crossley, “Manchester Poetry,” Blackwood’s Apr. 1821, 64-75; R. W. Proctor, Literary Reminiscences [1860], 57-65; Manchester Guardian 22 Mar. 1823) AA

 

Other Names:

  • D. W. Paynter
 

Books written (4):

Manchester: J. and H. Harrop, 1819
Manchester: Clarkes, Thomson and Ford, Bancks and Sowler, and Ellis, 1822
Manchester: Printed by J. Leigh, 1823