Author: Winship, Lionel
Biography:
WINSHIP, Lionel (fl 1814)
The publication of Lionel Winship’s Poems on Several Subjects in London in 1814 seems to have left no mark in the literary world and no later work bears his name. The contents are moralistic, taking conventional subjects such as the seasons and the death of Nelson, but are at least written in various verse forms. Although Winship’s name itself is unusual, it was not uncommon in Northumberland, with concentrations in Newcastle, Corbridge, and Hartburn, where generation after generation passed it on. In other parts of the country it is rare, with only one burial (London) recorded between 1814 and 1855. Odds are that a Northumberland man chose to publish in London but then went back to business as usual. Perhaps the likeliest candidate because his relative prosperity makes a literary education more probable is Lionel Winship (c. 1773-1839), a businessman who was elected one of the chamberlains for the Corporation of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1829 and died at home at Brandling-Place, near Newcastle, after a “painful illness,” aged 56, on 20 Oct. 1839. Other possibilities are Lionel Winship of Corbridge (1765-1820); of Hartburn (1785-1818); and of Newcastle (1781-1822). (findmypast.com 4 July 2024; ancestry.com 4 July 2024; Newcastle Courant 10 Oct. 1829; Newcastle Journal 26 Oct. 1839) HJ