Leigh Hunt

Following courtship for years, he married Marianne Kent on July 3, 1809. They had ten children.

Over the years his wife became an alcoholic and would embarrass him by borrowing money from his friends without his knowledge. After her death on January 26, 1857, her sister Elizabeth Kent began assisting Hunt.

His eldest son, Thornton once remarked that Elizabeth, who was intelligent and also published two books herself, would have been a more compatible wife for Leigh Hunt.

He was born on October 19, 1784 in Southgate London to Isaac Hunt and Mary Shewell Hunt. His father originally from Barbados was a lawyer and his mother was daughter of a prosperous merchant from Philadelphia.

His family fled from Philadelphia to England following the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. He was the first child and youngest son to be born out of America. Eventually Isaac Hunt became an Anglican preacher but struggled to sustain a permanent living.

He was named after James Henry Leigh, nephew of James Brydges, 3rd Duke of Chandos, who was taught by Isaac Hunt.

He enrolled in the ‘Christ’s Hospital’, a free boarding school, in 1791 and received his formal education there till 1799. While Samuel Taylor Coleridge graduated from the same school in early 1791, Charles Lamb left this school in 1789. Hunt had Thomas Barnes as one of his schoolmates.

Extensive reading, meticulous writing and a knack for classical literature were all part of his early life, thanks to the school curriculum that encouraged such endeavours.

He was inspired by the works of William Collins and Thomas Gray and many of his writings would reflect an uncanny similarity of their verses. This was evident from ‘Juvenilia’, his first volume of poems that he wrote in his school days. It was published in 1801 with the help of several notable subscribers from England and America, who were amassed by his father.

‘Juvenilia’ consisted of sonnets, elegies, translations, pastorals and hymns echoing works of William Collins, Thomas Gray and Alexander Pope. It received positive reviews from prominent literary critics.

After leaving school he started writing for newspapers that include a volume of theatre criticism issued in 1807 and a string of ‘Classic Tales’ along with critically written essays on authors.

For a while he worked as a clerk in his barrister brother Stephen’s office and thereafter in 1808 joined his brother John’s newspaper ‘Examiner’ in Strand, London, as its editor.

From 1810 to 1811 he also edited John’s quarterly magazine, ‘The Reflector’ and penned down a satire, ‘The Feast of the Poets’ that annoyed William Gifford and many other poets.

One of the boarding houses at Christ’s Hospital school was named after him in September 1966.