Author: Tickell, Richard
Biography:
TICKELL, Richard (1751-1793: ODNB)
Born, possibly at Bath, a son of John Tickell (1727-1782) and his wife, Esther (b 1731?), a daughter of Thomas Pierson of Glasnevin. He was a grandson of Thomas Tickell (1685-1740), the friend of Addison and other early eighteenth-century wits. Educated at Westminster School in 1764 and at Eton in 1765, he entered Middle Temple in 1768, became a commissioner of bankrupts and a commissioner of stamps, and was granted a £200 government pension. With Gifford, Mathias, and Wolcot (qq.v.), he was one of the principal satirists of the late eighteenth century, best known for his pamphlet, “Anticipation”, published 28 Nov. 1778, in which he invented speeches for leading parliamentarians. With George Ellis (q.v.) and others, he contributed to the anti-Pittite Rolliad. Tickell published the initial editions of his poetry in a two-year period, 1778-80. He had several productions at Drury Lane theatre, in some of which he collaborated with his wife, who wrote the music. He also wrote prologues for other writers’ plays. He married his first wife, Mary Linley (1758-1787), daughter of Thomas Linley, a costume pattern cutter at Drury Lane theatre, on 26 July 1780, at St Clement Danes, London. She died 3 Aug. 1787 at Hot Wells, Bristol. By her he had four children: Elizabeth Anne (1782-1860), who died in London, unmarried; Richard Brinsley (1783-1805), a Royal Navy lieutenant, who died in action off the coast of Sardinia; and Samuel Richard (1785-1819), a captain lieutenant in the Bengal Army who died in India. Mary Linley’s sister, Elizabeth (d 1792), married Tickell’s great friend, Richard Brinsley Sheridan (q.v.), whom Tickell had first met at Bath in 1780. He remarried on 24 Aug. 1789, at Hampton Court, Sarah Ley (1770-1812), the eighteen-year-old daughter of Captain Thomas Ley (d 1798) of Newton Abbot. He and Sarah had a daughter, Zipporah (1777- 1842), who in 1795 married Ebenezer Roebuck. Their son John Arthur Roebuck (1802-1879) was a notable radical politician. Tickell died 4 Nov. 1793 by falling from a window of his grace and favour apartment in Hampton Court Palace. A contemporary account denied the rumour (probably well founded) that he had committed suicide. He was buried on 11 Nov. at St. Mary church, Richmond upon Thames. After Tickell’s death, Sheridan supported his friend’s family. (ODNB 5 Apr. 2023; Morning Post 6 Nov. 1793; Ipswich Journal 16 Nov. 1793; J. A. Roebuck, Life and Letters, ed. R. E. Leader [1897]) JC
Other Names:
- R. Tickell