Author: Saint-Mawe, John
Biography:
ST. MAWE, John (1798-1820: findmypast.co.uk)
According to the "Memoir" prefixed to Selections (1821), he was born on 21 Feb. 1798, although a memorial inscription at St. Giles, Northampton, states that he was in his 25th year (= b 1796). Since both the "Memoir" and the memorial were almost certainly written by one or both of his parents, both dates have authority. Hugh Torrens in ODNB, possibly following the St. Paul’s Admissions Registers (1884), gives 1797. He was the son of John Mawe (1766-1829), a noted mineralogist, and his wife Sarah Brown (1767-1846). The family lived at 5 Tavistock Street, Bloomsbury, and opened a shop selling minerals in Covent Garden. This was later expanded to minerals and ornaments, specialising in Derbyshire Spar Black Marble and Italian alabaster, with premises at 149 Strand. (His father’s Travels in the Interior of Brazil [1812] is still highly regarded.) He entered St. Paul’s in 1807 and later won the Governors’ Prize for his poem "Prometheus." He proceeded to the Inner Temple (1814) and Trinity College, Cambridge, (matr. 1815, BA 1819). In the spring of 1820, “his looks announced languor and ill-health” which his friends attributed to “too close an application to study.” This was probably consumption and a similar explanation had earlier been offered for Henry Kirke White (q.v.). His parents sent him to Matlock in an attempt to restore his health but he died on the way at Northampton on 13 Jul. 1820. After his death, the family made selections from his Commonplace Book. This displayed many affinities to topics treated by major Romantic poets: Prometheus, Jerusalem, the Fall of Lucifer, Plato and Spenser, etc. (findmypast.co.uk 9 Apr. 2021; "Memoir" prefixed to Selections [1821]; "Mawe, John," ODNB 9 Apr. 2021; Morning Post 24 Jul 1820; R. B. Gardiner, The Admissions Registers of St. Paul’s School, from 1748 to 1876 [1884]) AA
Other Names:
- John St. Mawe