Author: West, Joshua
Biography:
WEST, Joshua (fl 1787-1806)
Pseudonym Harry Helicon
Joshua West was busy as a satirist and song-writer for thirty years in London, but biographical information is elusive—public records few or none before 1800, newspapers silent, and his own publications reticent. It is possible that “Joshua West” was a pen-name. On the other hand, there are records for a man of that name who flourished after 1806. Although it seems unlikely that someone who had been active in the literary world would fall completely silent, he might have found circumstances that allowed him to live well without writing for a living. He could be the Joshua West born about 1763 who married Dorothy Wilkins (b c. 1787) on 11 June 1806 at Saint Pancras, London, and then settled in Chepping Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, where they had four children baptised. They were registered as Wesleyan (Methodist) non-conformists. She died aged 30 in 1817 and was buried in Buckinghamshire; he died at Richmond upon Thames (the subject of his earliest poem, if he is the same man) and was buried there at St. Mary’s on 18 Apr. 1830. It is just about possible that he remarried: a Joshua West married Mary Ann Malen (or Malin) Sitch, aged 20, at Shoreditch in London on 17 June 1824. (ancestry.com 6 May 2024; findmypast.com 6 May 2024) HJ
Other Names:
- J. West