Note 182 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY
Reading edition
In this list of Smith’s patrons the following are of interest:—The “beautiful Miss Towry” was Anne, daughter of Captain George Phillips Towry, R.N., commissioner of victualling, who became the wife of Lord Ellenborough, afterwards Lord Chief Justice of England, Oct. 17, 1782. Her beauty was so great that passers-by would linger to watch her watering the flowers on the balcony of their house in Bloomsbury Square. Lady Ellenborough bore thirteen children, and, surviving her husband many years, died in Stratford Place, Oxford Street, Aug. 16, 1843, aged 74. Her portrait was painted by Reynolds.
Mr. Douglas was James Douglas, author of Nenia Britannica, a Sepulchral History of Great Britain. As a youth he helped Sir Ashton Lever to stuff birds for his museum. His abilities in painting were considerable, and we owe to him a full-length portrait of Captain Grose. His Travelling Anecdotes is an interesting book.
By “Mr. Chamberlain Clark” Smith means Mr. Richard Clark, but he antedates his title of City Chamberlain, to which post he was appointed only in 1798; he held it until 1831, and was Lord Mayor in 1784.
Dr. Joseph Drury was Headmaster of Harrow for twenty years, 1785-1805. He will always be remembered as Lord Byron’s headmaster.
John Wigston figures in Smith’s notes under the year 1796 as a patron of Morland.
Information concerning Captain Horsley and the Boddams will be found in Robinson’s History of Enfield.
Mr. Henry Hare Townsend was the owner of Bruce Castle, which he sold in 1792; it was afterwards occupied by Rowland Hill, who brought hither his school, disciplined on the “Hazlewood” system, before he became a public man and the founder of penny postage.
The Mr. Samuel Salt, whose name comes last in Smith’s list of his patrons, is no other than Charles Lamb’s Samuel Salt of the Inner Temple. “July 27. At his chambers in Crown Office Row, Inner Temple, Samuel Salt, Esq., one of the benchers of that hon. society, and a governor of the South Sea Company” (Gentleman’s Magazine, July 1792).—Lawrence Sterne, at whose burial he assisted, was laid in the St. George’s (Hanover Square) burial-ground, facing Hyde Park, March 22, 1788. Sterne’s grave is well kept.