Author: Simpson, Joseph
Biography:
SIMPSON, Joseph (1721-c. 1774: findmypast.com)
A year after the death of Samuel Johnson (1709-84), The Patriot: a Tragedy was published from manuscript as his work, with his own corrections, but the error or fraud was soon detected. Boswell told the story in his Life of Johnson (1791). At dinner on 10 Apr. 1776 Arthur Murphy (q.v.) had entertained the company with the story of this play, composed by the London barrister Joseph Simpson, which was so poorly received when he read it to fellow lawyers that he wrote a second version with the same title. There were thus two manuscripts. At the time, Johnson (q.v.) confirmed the story and revealed that one of them was still in his possession, presumably brought to him by his old acquaintance for an opinion and not returned in Simpson’s lifetime. As Boswell observes, it had been taken from among Johnson’s papers after his death and “fallaciously advertised” for profit—by whom is not known. Simpson was baptised at Lichfield, Staffordshire, on 8 Mar. 1721, the son of Stephen Simpson or Sympson; his mother’s name is not known. He was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn and practised in London. On 4 Jan. 1753 he married Elizabeth Gravenor (b 1726) of Coventry at St. George’s Chapel, Albemarle St., London, both of them recorded at the time as residents of the parish of St. Andrew’s, Holborn. They had at least one daughter, Jane (b 1755). In prosperous times Simpson was able to lend Johnson money, but he was said to have fallen into dissolute ways and neglected his business. He was the author of a preparatory guide for lawyers, Reflections on the . . . Endowments requisite for the Study of the Law (1764, 4th edn. 1785). The exact date of his death is not certain but he might have been the man of this name buried at St. James, Piccadilly, on 24 Dec. 1774. (findmypast.com 24 Oct. 2024; ancestry.com 24 Oct. 2024; Boswell’s Life of Johnson ed. Hill and Powell [1934] 1: 80-81, 346-7, 3: 28)