Author: Praed, Winthrop Mackworth
Biography:
PRAED, Winthrop Mackworth (1802-39: ODNB)
As a poet, Praed was most popular among the Victorians, after his death, when collected editions gathered together verses that he had contributed to various periodicals and annuals. He was born in London on 26 June 1802 and baptised on 3 Sept. at Holborn; the family seat was Bitton House in Teignmouth, Devon. His father William Mackworth Praed (1756-1810) was a serjeant-at-law and his mother Elizabeth (Winthrop) Praed (1767-1810) a daughter of the Governor of the Bank of England. He was a rather frail child but a brilliant scholar. At Eton (1814-21) he created and was the major contributor to two periodicals. At Trinity College, Cambridge (matric. 1821, BA 1825, Fellow 1827, MA 1828), he won multiple prizes and medals for Greek and English composition. Starting about 1825, he was an occasional contributor to newspapers and magazines, notably the New Monthly Magazine, and to the Literary Souvenir of Alaric Watts (q.v.). He travelled abroad as tutor to the son of a nobleman and later accompanied the boy to Eton, and then undertook studies in law at the Middle Temple. He was called to the bar in 1829. Thereafter, he combined a successful legal practice in London with political engagement. He was elected as a Tory MP 1830-2 (St. Germans, Cornwall, a pocket borough eliminated by the Reform Bill, which Praed opposed), 1834-7 (Great Yarmouth, Norfolk), and 1837-9 (Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire). On 6 July 1835 he married Helen Bogle, an illegitimate daughter of the sugar merchant George Bogle (1762-1813), who owned plantations in Jamaica; her dowry was £25,000. They had two daughters. The family settled in a house at 64 Chester Square, Belgravia, where Praed died of consumption on 15 July 1839. He was buried on 23 July at Kensal Green. The GM obituary set the tone for subsequent memoirs and biographies, lamenting the early loss of a boy genius who might have done great things. (ODNB 7 Nov. 2023; GM Sept. 1839, 319; ancestry.com 7 Nov. 2023; findmypast.com 7 Nov. 2023; ACAD; LBS 7 Nov. 2023)