Author: Webster, J. Wedderburne
Biography:
WEBSTER, James Wedderburne (1788-1840: ancestry.co.uk)
He changed his name several times: at birth he was called James Wedderburn(e) Webster, later he used Webster Wedderburne or just Webster, and his marriage certificate has Webster Wedderburne Webster. He was the son of David Webster, landowner and merchant, and his wife Elizabeth Read and was born at the family home in Clapham, Surrey. He was tutored at home, served briefly in both the navy and the army, and, in 1808, was admitted as a student to Lincoln’s Inn (although this seems to have come to nothing). In 1810 he married Lady Frances Caroline Annesley, the daughter of Arthur, Earl of Mountnorris; she was seventeen at the time of the wedding. They had four sons and one daughter; the eldest son died in infancy. He was a friend of Lord Byron (q.v.) who stayed with the Websters in London and may—or may not—have had an affair with Lady Frances (allegedly Byron was irritated by Webster’s boasts of his wife’s honour). Although Webster had left the army by the time of Waterloo, he was eager for people to believe not only that he had been present but that he had been wounded. He was knighted in 1822 and afterwards styled himself “baronet” but he was never granted his wish of a post at a British consulate abroad. He was disappointed at being all but cut out of his wealthy uncle’s will and in 1831 launched a chancery suit; he was also involved in a suit against his father’s estate (David Webster had died in 1801). He published various political pamphlets but seems to have had financial trouble; there are, for example, records of an action brought against him by the printer of his Essay on the Foreign Policy of Great Britain (1832) for non-payment of his bill. Webster and Lady Frances separated; he seems to have lived in both London and Paris while she was mainly in Paris. He died in Dublin of a stroke in a public house where he had stopped for a drink after dining with a friend. He was buried in Dublin. The printer of his only book of verse, Fermin Didot, had introduced stereotyping and a particularly cutting review in the London Quarterly Review suggested that Webster’s book had been composed by a verse-making machine of Didot’s manufacture. (A. D. O. Wedderburn, The Book of Wedderburns [1898]; ancestry.co.uk 15 Dec. 2020; findmypast.co.uk 15 Dec. 2020; London Quarterly Review 15 [1816]; Globe 19 Jan. 1833; Essex Standard 28 Aug. 1840) SR