Author: Soane, George
Biography:
SOANE, George (1789-1860: ODNB)
He was the younger son of the architect Sir John Soane (1757-1837) and his wife Elizabeth Smith, born in London on 28 Sept. 1789 and baptised at St. Marylebone on 18 Dec. (The Soanes had baptised a child of the same name in that church in Jan. 1788 but he died in infancy.) Shortly after graduating from Pembroke College, Cambridge (matric. 1806, BA 1811), he married Agnes, a daughter of the dramatist and journalist James Boaden (q.v.), against his parents' wishes and by his own admission to "spite" them; they had three children, two of whom survived infancy. The consequent estrangement was made worse as George Soane turned out to be financially undependable and an abusive husband; furthermore he is believed to have fathered a child with his wife's sister. Like his father-in-law, Soane made a living by writing. He was the author of many pieces for the stage--farces, tragedies, adaptations, translations, but especially melodramas--as well as novels and journalism. Two anonymous attacks on Sir John's work that appeared in 1815 were the last straw: widely known to be by him, they were believed to have hastened his mother's death, and his father disinherited him. When Sir John Soane died leaving George only £52 p.a. (with another £40 to Agnes protected from claims by her husband), George contested the will in vain. His father had been a patron and vice-president of the RLF, to which George first applied without success in 1827. After the death of Sir John, an application in 1837 pleading “Penury and Starvation” secured a grant of £50; one in 1838 from Queen’s Bench prison appears to have been disqualified, but another in 1841 gained £30. Later appeals in 1852 and 1855 were rejected. His wife Agnes died in 1845. In the 1851 census Soane was reported as living with two unmarried daughters, one a concert singer and the other an actress, and according to an obituary he spent his last years in “comfortable retirement.” He died at home in Marylebone on 12 July 1860, attended by his daughter Clara. He left effects initially valued at under £450 but later revised to £600. ("Soane, George" and "Soane, Sir John," ODNB 4 Oct. 2020; "Soane, George," Wikipedia 4 Oct. 2020; ACAD; findmypast.com 31 Jan. 2025; ancestry.com 31 Jan. 2025; Sun [London] 21 July 1860; RLF #606) HJ
Other Names:
- G. Soane