Author: Summersett, Henry
Biography:
SUMMERSETT, Henry Neville (b 1774: ancestry.co.uk)
Establishing the facts of Summersett’s life is complicated by his having the same name as his father and by the peripatetic nature of his career as an actor and writer. (A further complication is the attribution to Henry Summersett in EN1 of Sutton-Abbey: A Novel [1779] although the preface identifies the author as a woman.) Henry Neville Summersett was baptised in Hadleigh, Suffolk, on 23 June 1774, the son of Henry Summersett and his wife Hannah Neville (1749-1802). Henry Summersett senior had a somewhat chequered career; likely he was the man of that name who served in the Loyal Suffolk Fencible Regiment and he operated the King’s Head inn, Ipswich. He went bankrupt in May 1792 and it may have been the family’s precarious financial situation that prompted his son to turn to writing novels. Summersett’s The Offspring of Russell was published in 1794 and was followed by The Fate of Sedley (1795), Aberford (1798), Mad Man of the Mountain (1799), Jaqueline of Olzeburg (1800), Leopold Warndorf (1800), Martyn of Fenrose (1801), The Worst of Stains (1804), and All Sorts of Lovers (1811). Probable Incidents (1797), issued by subscription, was the first of his novels to have Summersett’s name on the title page. He is named in an advertisement as the author of The Scourge of Conscience (1801). Summersett developed a career acting in provincial theatres and his comedy, Happy at Last, or Sigh No More Ladies (1805), identifies him on the title page as “of the Kendal, Ulverstone, Harrowgate, Beverly, Richmond, Ripon and Whitby Theatres.” He may have been the Henry Summersett who was imprisoned for debt in Newgate prison, London, in the summer of 1812. Summersett married Ann Birchall in Spalding, Lincolnshire, on 18 Sept. 1813 when the groom gave his age as thirty-five. In 1817 the couple was in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, where two of their children, Rebecca (b 1815 in Grantham, Lincolnshire) and Henry Neville (b 1817 in Nottingham), were baptised; the records identify Summersett as a “travelling comedian [actor].” Summersett’s tragedy, Ferdinand, was issued by subscription in Newark, Nottingham; the subscribers’ names include many associated with the provincial theatres, particularly Norwich and Edinburgh. No record of his death has been located. (ancestry.co.uk 20 Dec. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 20 Dec. 2024; Ipswich Journal 12 May 1792, 13 Aug. 1796; EN1; EN2; Steve Orman, “Henry Summersett,” henrysummersett.wordpress.com 20 Dec. 2024) SR
Other Names:
- Henry Neville Summersett