Author: Perry, James
Biography:
PERRY, James (1756-1821: ODNB)
Pseudonym Adam Strong
James Perry, who made a fortune as editor of the London daily Morning Chronicle, was originally James Pirie, a Scot, the son of a joiner and house-builder, James Pirie, and his wife Isobel Hay. They lived at Cottle Hill, Aberdeen, but he was baptised on 19 Oct. 1756 at Cairnie by Huntly, Aberdeenshire. He attended Aberdeen high school and the Marischal College, Aberdeen, but was obliged to leave without a degree after the failure of his father’s business in 1774. He spent some time working as a clerk and some time on the stage, where his accent was a liability but where he met Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809) who became a good friend. At some point he started spelling his surname “Perry.” In 1777 he went to London to try to make his way as a writer. The anonymous political satires in this bibliography belong to those early years: Perry was a loyal Foxite whig. From a first job as parliamentary reporter for the General Advertiser, he went on to serve as editor of the Gazeteer from 1783 to 1790, and then seized the opportunity, in partnership with James Gray, to buy the Morning Chronicle. He led the paper through many vicissitudes—notably accusations of Jacobinism--until his death. As editor and therefore ultimately responsible for the content of the paper, he was acquitted of seditious libel in 1793 and again in 1810, but he spent three months in prison (entertaining friends, apparently) for a libel upon the House of Lords in the summer of 1798. On 23 Aug. 1798 he married Anne Hull (1773-1815) at St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch; they went on to have eight children. His wife died at Bordeaux in 1815 after surviving abduction by pirates. Perry himself partially retired from the paper in 1817 on account of ill health; after some unsuccessful operations he died at his house in Brighton on 5 Dec. 1821 and was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary’s, Wimbledon, on 19 Dec. His wealth at death was estimated at between £130,000 and £190,000. (ODNB 23 Sept. 2023; ancestry.com 23 Sept. 2023; findmypast.com 23 Sept. 2023)