Author: Sulivan, Robert
Biography:
SULIVAN, Robert (1797-1875: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 1 Oct. 1797 at Fort St. George, Madras (now Chennai), India, the youngest son of Sir Benjamin Sulivan (1747-1810), a judge on the supreme court at Madras and sometime recorder at Bombay, and Elizabeth Dent (1771-1824), daughter of Rear Admiral Sir Digby Dent (1739-1817). They had married in Madras on 17 May 1790. His father left an estate of at least £45,000, of which Robert and his elder brother George James received £5,000 each. He was probably sent to school in England but it is not known where. He was later educated at Trinity College, Oxford (matric. 5 Dec. 1815) but does not appear to have taken a degree. In 1817 he was a student at the Inner Temple; he qualified as a barrister and was for many years a magistrate. He married Margaret Filmer, niece of Rev. Sir John Filmer of East Sutton, Kent, on 3 June 1819 at the Queen’s Chapel, Walcot St. Swithin’s, Bath. They had one daughter, Eugenie, born in Savoy in 1827. The preface to his first volume, The Silent River (1824), a dramatic poem, was signed from Weybridge, Surrey. From the late 1830s they lived in Ashford, Kent, but by 1851 they had moved to Kensington, London, where they remained until they retired to Fernlea, Chilworth, near Southampton, Hampshire, sometime before 1871. He died there on 24 Feb. 1875, leaving an estate of just under £3000 to his widow, Margaret, who died the following year. He published Flittings of Fancy (1837), mostly prose sketches and tales with some poetry, and a reprinting of The Silent River, but later joined the Dramatic Authors’ Society and concentrated on playwriting. One of his comedies, Elopements in High Life, was performed at the Haymarket in London on 7 Apr. 1853 and later in New York. He also wrote a now forgotten novel, The Agent of Broome Warren (1871). (ancestry.co.uk 29 July 2023; findmypast.co.uk 29 July 2023; Morning Post 7 June 1819; Hampshire Advertiser, 27 Feb. 1875, 26 Jan. 1876; GM Oct. 1810, 396, and Nov. 1810, 491; New York Times 27 Apr. 1855) AA