Author: Warden, C. F.
Biography:
WARDEN, C. F. (1797-1830: ancestry.co.uk)
He was probably the Charles Frederick Warden born on 29 Mar. 1797 and baptised on 7 Apr. at St. George’s, Hanover Square, London, the eldest son of Charles Frederick Warden (1746-1808) and Mary Cooper (1780-1802), who had married in 1796. Family legend has it that his father was the illegitimate son of Charles Edward Stuart, the Jacobite Pretender, and Lady Douglas and later changed his name from Stuart to Warden. At his death in 1808 his father was Quarter and Pay Master of the second battalion of the 82nd Regiment of Foot. The attribution of The Battle of Waterloo (1817) is based on the signature (“C. F. Warden”) in a contemporary hand to the preface in the British Library copy (992.i.14). His father’s occupation together with his being the only name in the public records to match the signature are the only corroboration of his authorship. He married Elizabeth Prudence Poarch (1797-1884) on 1 Sept. 1818, at St. George’s Hanover Square. They went on to have at least seven children, four of whom died in infancy. He is recorded as a tea dealer and grocer, initially in Pimlico, Westminster, and from about 1822 until his death, at Woolwich. He died on 29 Mar. 1830 and was buried on 4 Apr. at St. Mary Magdalene, Woolwich, now south London. Elizabeth Prudence survived him, remarried in 1843, and died in Lewisham in 1884. (ancestry.co.uk 25 July 2023; findmypast.co.uk 25 July 2023; GRO) AA