Author: Tyson, James
Biography:
TYSON, James (1797-1820: “Memoir,” 1822)
He was born on 29 Aug. 1797 and baptised on 22 Sept. at. St. Olave’s, Southwark, the eldest son of James Tyson, slate merchant, of 181 Tooley Street, near Tower Bridge, and his wife Jane Peatt, who had married at St. Mary’s, Long Ditton, Surrey, on 1 Sept. 1796. His father died in December 1798 and left most of his considerable wealth, consisting of money and property, to his wife and various friends and relatives. His mother married Henry Vent, owner of a counting house in King Street, Cheapside, in 1804. Although James Tyson never went to formal school, his mother had placed him with Rev. J. B. Saunders, Curate of St. Augustine’s, and he was taught classical literature. He began his literary efforts early with the ambitious pamphlet A Brief Historical View of the Causes of the Decline of the Commerce of Nations (1813). In the same year he was placed in his stepfather’s counting- house, but never took to it, resigned in 1815, and announced he was marrying “Lady Thalia Melpomene Bombastina Dramatica.” Thereafter he moved to Bloomsbury and engaged in various literary efforts with limited success. A tragedy, Leoni, was never performed. He formed a literary society in 1817 with his friend Thomas James Serle (q.v.) which met in rooms in Chancery Lane. He also corresponded with George Miller of the Paisley Philosophical Institution. In 1816-17, he produced a Student’s Journal and Private Diary for the publishers, Taylor and Hessey but it is not known in what format. He toured Europe in 1819 and wrote several topgraphical poems on “Mont Blanc” and “Lake Leman” (Letters, 181-6, 186-8). In Dec. 1818, he finished “A Comparative View of British Literature, during the Last Hundred and Fifty Years’ (Letters, 225-60). He died after a long illness, possibly consumption, at Bernard Street, Russell Square, on 12 July 1820. He was buried in the family vault at Holy Trinity, Lark-Hall Lane, Clapham, on 19 July. He left an estate of around £20,000, which he had probably inherited from his father, to his mother and various friends. His mother died at Bernard Street in 1825 and was also buried in the family vault. (‘Memoir,” Letters, Poems and Miscellaneous Papers [1822], i-xli; ancestry.co.uk 15 Ap. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 15 Apr. 2022; London Directories; Daily Advertiser and Oracle 22 Feb. 1804; SJC 15 July 1820) AA