Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thurlow, Edward (1781-1829)

740667Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 56 — Thurlow, Edward (1781-1829)1898James McMullen Rigg

THURLOW, afterwards HOVELL-THURLOW, EDWARD, second Baron Thurlow (1781–1829), minor poet, was first son of Thomas Thurlow [q. v.], bishop of Durham, by Anne, daughter of William Bere of Lymington, Hampshire. Born in the Temple, London, on 10 June 1781, he was educated at the Charterhouse and Magdalen College, Oxford, whence he matriculated on 17 May 1798, and was created M.A. on 16 July 1801. On the death of his uncle, Lord-chancellor Thurlow, he succeeded to the barony of Thurlow of Thurlow, Suffolk, 12 Sept. 1806 [see Thurlow, Edward, first Baron Thurlow]; but did not take his seat in the House of Lords until 29 Nov. 1810. In commemoration of the descent of his grandmother from Richard Hovell, esquire of the body to Henry V, he prefixed to Thurlow the additional surname Hovell by royal license dated 8 July 1814.

In accordance with a custom not infrequent in those days, Thurlow was appointed on 30 Dec. 1785 one of the principal registrars of the diocese of Lincoln, and in 1788 clerk of the custodies of idiots and lunatics. To those offices were added those of clerk of the presentations in the petty bag office (1796), patentee of commissions in bankruptcy (1803), and clerk of the Hanaper (1821). He retained them all until his death at Brighton on 4 June 1829.

Thurlow married, at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields on 13 Nov. 1813, an actress of some talent, Mary Catherine (d. 1830), eldest daughter of James Richard Bolton, attorney, by whom he had three sons, of whom Edward Thomas succeeded him in the title.

Thurlow edited for private circulation, London, 1810, 4to, Sir Philip Sidney's ‘Defence of Poesy,’ to which he prefixed some original sonnets, reprinted, with ‘Hermilda,’ an attempt in the manner of Tasso, as ‘Verses on several Occasions,’ London, 1812, 8vo; second enlarged edition entitled ‘Poems on several Occasions,’ 1813, 8vo. He was also author of ‘Ariadne: a poem in three parts,’ 8vo; ‘Carmen Britannicum’ (4to), in honour of the prince regent; and ‘The Doge's Daughter: a poem, with several translations from Anacreon and Horace,’ 8vo (all published at London in 1814); of ‘Select Poems,’ privately printed at Chiswick in 1821 (8vo); and ‘Angelica, or the Rape of Proteus,’ an attempt to continue Shakespeare's ‘Tempest,’ 1822, 8vo. He was a frequent contributor to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ in which appeared (April 1813) his ‘Lines on Rogers's Epistle to a Friend,’ somewhat brutally parodied by Byron (Works, ed. 1855, ii. 345). His laboured and affected effusions met with deserved castigation at the hands of Moore (Edinburgh Review, September 1814).

[G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage; London Kalendar, 1797, p. 186; Royal Kalendar, 1788–1829; Lords' Journ. xlviii. 5; Gent. Mag. 1813, i. 41; Martin's Cat. Priv. Printed Books; Moore's Life of Byron, 1847, pp. 181, 206, 216; Clayden's Rogers and his Contemporaries, i. 128–30.]

J. M. R.