Author: Weston, Ferdinand Fullerton
Biography:
WESTON, Ferdinand Fullerton (1772-1835: ancestry.co.uk)
He was the eldest son of Henry Perkins Weston (d 1826) of West Horsley Place, Surrey, and his first wife, Marianne Bergier de Rovereaz of Lausanne. He was baptised at St Mary’s, West Horsley, on 4 July 1772. Educated at Eton and the University of Edinburgh--where he was a member of the Speculative Society in 1803-4--he was drawn to the theatre and a literary career; two of his plays were, however, published in The Dramatic Appellant (1808), a collection of works rejected by the theatres. On 25 May 1808 he married Harriet Eliza Babington of Oporto, Portugal; they lived in London where Weston edited the short-lived Monthly Literary Recreation (1806-8), published by Benjamin Crosby. It is now chiefly remembered for having printed some early poetry (“Stanzas to Jessy”) and reviews by Lord Byron (q.v.). They later moved to Bath where their daughter, Anne Henrietta, was born on 7 Feb. 1813. Weston published nothing in English after 1813 but he had a second career, living in Paris and writing in French. It is not known when he left England but he was living at 35 Rue St Denis, Paris, in 1821 when his Les Matinées du Sultan. Contes Arabes was published. A letter to Lord Byron dated 22 Dec. 1822 supplies further details. It describes him as “the child of sorrow and misfortune, estranged from my former friends, and abandoned by my family” for having converted to Roman Catholicism. The letter is addressed from Sainte-Pélagie prison where he had been incarcerated for £100 of debt, asks Byron to send a complete set of his works, and seeks a recommendation to his publisher, John Murray, for Weston’s latest work, a translation from the troubadours (not published, although two other works in French were issued in 1822 and 1825). Weston must later have reconciled with his family, perhaps after the death of his father. In Mar. 1834 a newspaper announcement in his name invited tenants of his Surrey estate to a “court baron” to pay arrears of rent. He died in Lichfield, Staffordshire, and his funeral was held at St. Michael’s on 11 June 1835. His religion at the time of death was given as Anglican. (ancestry.co.uk 24 Sept. 2021; WorldCat; Monthly Literary Recreations 1-3 [1806-8]; London Courier and Evening Gazette 11 Feb. 1813; County Chronicle 25 Mar. 1834; “Poetic effusions of various authors dedicated to Lord Byron and ‘Childe Harold’”, NLS, MS 43381; History of the Speculative Society of Edinburgh [1845]; contributions from AA) SR
Other Names:
- Ferdinand Weston