Author: Trusler, John
Biography:
TRUSLER, John (1735-1820: ODNB)
The only surviving son of John Trusler, the proprietor of the tearooms at Marylebone Gardens in London, and Elizabeth Webb, who had married in 1731, he was baptised at St. George’s, Hanover Square, on 14 July 1735. He was well educated: Westminster School (1745-50) followed by a private seminary and then Emmanuel College, Cambridge (matric. 1753, BA 1757). After being ordained as a priest in 1759 he held a few curacies and then a cluster of offices in London. According to ODNB he married in 1759 and had a son with his first wife but she died in 1762: records are wanting. On 11 Oct. 1764 he married Elizabeth Burns (d 1780) at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London; they had five daughters. On 6 Jan. 1788 at St. James’s, Piccadilly, he married Mary Anne Frances Louisa Legroux, with whom he had a son. Trusler was a man of restless energy and enterprise, and the legends that grew up around him were partly of his own planting. He may have studied medicine with William Hunter; certainly he was known as “Dr. Trusler” and published household medical guides. Some title-pages refer to him as DD. GM awarded him an LLD in its obituary. Of many projects, the one that bore the most fruit was his Literary Society with its exclusive Literary Press. For a reasonable subscription fee authors could bypass London publishers and be seen into print by him. His Hogarth Moralized (1766), commissioned by Hogarth’s widow, led to several handsome and lucrative editions of Hogarth’s works. The catalogues that Trusler began to issue about 1788 consisted mostly of his own compilations, reissued year after year, on subjects such as table etiquette, wealth management, husbandry, and the common law. Among the most successful were his Chronology or universal history under various titles and his abridgment of Chesterfield’s letters as Principles of Politeness. The Press did well enough that he was able to move his family from London to Bath, Somerset, but their fortunes declined afterwards. He died at Villa House, Bathwick, and was buried at St. Mary’s on 23 June 1820. Trusler published one volume of unreliable Memoirs in 1806 and left a continuation, unfinished, in manuscript which is now at the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington CT. (ODNB 9 Sept. 2024; ACAD; CCEd 9 Sept. 2024; findmypast.com 9 Sept. 2024; GM July 1820, 89)