Author: Perry, Charles James
Biography:
PERRY, Charles James (1789-1859: findmypast.com)
Perry was born in Bristol in 1789 according to Census records, but no public record has been found and the names of his parents are unknown. The title-page and preface of his only publication, The House of Mornington . . . with Miscellaneous Poems (1826), announce that the author is a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of London and that this is his first “essay at authorship.” The poetical contents are occasional poems commemorating births and deaths, celebrating local heroes such as Peter Hervé (brother of Charles Hervé, q.v.), and paying tribute to young women. The RCS records confirm that Perry was a member of the profession with a practice in Bristol, Gloucestershire, in 1812. An announcement that Perry sent to a Bristol paper in 1810 when he was hoping for a position at the Bristol Infirmary mentions that he had already been apprenticed for seven years and practising for two more. On 2 Apr. 1811 he married Maria Catharine Sterne (b 1791) in Bristol; there seem not to have been children from the marriage. In 1817 Perry and his partner dissolved their business as “Surgeons, Apothecaries, and Men Midwives” in Bristol. It was probably not long after then that Perry moved his practice to London: the Censuses for 1841 and 1851 from addresses in Islington identify him as a surgeon and her as a surgeon’s wife. In 1826 he published his book but it does not appear to have attracted reviews. He died of bronchitis at their home on St. George's Place, off the Holloway Road, on 24 Nov. 1859, aged 70, and was buried at Finchley Burial Ground. Maria stayed at the same address, describing her financial status in 1861 as “supported by friends.” She died in 1865 and was buried also buried at Finchley. (findmypast.com 17 Sept. 2023; ancestry.com 17 Sept. 2023; Bristol Mirror 15 Sept. 1810, 5 July 1817; General List of the Members of the Royal College of Surgeons in London [1812]; contributions from AA) HJ