Walter Thornbury

George Walter Thornbury (13 November 1828 - 11 June 1876) was an English poet and miscellaneous writer.

George Walter Thornbury (1828-1876), Songs of the Cavaliers and Roundheads (1857). Forgotten Books, 2018. Courtesy Amazon.com.

Life

Youth and education

Thornbury was born in London, the son of George Thornbury, solicitor, of 16 Chancery Lane.

He was educated at Cheam, Surrey, by the rector, Barton Bouchier, the husband of his father's sister Mary.

Career

Although he was destined by both parents for the church, he resolved to become an artist, and spent some time at the academy of James Mathews Leigh.

Very soon, however, he settled down to the career of a journalist and man of letters, and achieved some reputation as a versifier, a biographer, and author of popular historical and topographical sketches.

He began writing for the press at Bristol, and at the age of 17 contributed a series of topographical and antiquarian articles to Farley's Bristol Journal. At Bristol he also published a small volume of poems.

Returning to London before 1851, Thornbury joined the staff of the Athenæum, his earliest contributions being a series of papers describing the Great International Exhibition. On their completion these were republished in 1851, under the title of The Courts of the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park.

Soon afterwards he was associated with Dickens as a contributor to the later volumes of Household Words; and when All the Year Round was inaugurated, he proved valuable contributor(Dickens, Letters, ii. 170, iii. 239). In the service of the 2 periodicals he travelled widely, and wrote articles vividly depicting the United States, and Palestine, the Iberian Peninsula, and European Turkey.

Another series of articles in All the Year Round, entitled "Old Stories Retold," dealt with topics like "Trafalgar in 1805," "Bombardment of Algiers in 1816," "The Assassination of Mr. Perceval in 1812," "The Cato Street Conspiracy in 1820," "The Two Great Murders in the Ratcliffe Highway in 1811," and "The Resurrection Men—Burke and Hare, in 1829." But the long series was brought to a close on account of Dickens's dislike of the sanguinary topics to which Thornbury confined the later papers. The articles were published in a volume in 1870.

To the monthly magazines Thornbury was also a frequent contributor, and in later life engaged largely in art criticism. His most important independent publication was his Life of J.M.W. Turner, from original letters and papers (2 vols. 1861). He wrote the whole of it under the watchful observation of John Ruskin; and, as Thornbury himself remarked, it was "very much like working bareheaded under a tropical sun!"

As the writer of half a dozen 3-volume novels, Thornbury added little to his reputation. A novel called True as Steel (1863) was based on Goethe's Goetz von Berlichingen; another, Wildfire (1864), was the expansion of a sketch by Diderot, and illustrated the period of the great French revolution.

Thornbury's last undertaking of importance was a popular descriptive history of London, called Old and New London. The earliest volume appeared in 1872, and a 2nd just before Thornbury's death. The work was completed in 4 additional volumes by Edward Walford.

Thornbury married about 1872.

He died of overwork at Camberwell House Asylum, Peckham Road, London, on 11 June 1876, and was buried on 13 June at Nunhead cemetery. His young widow and 3 young sons survived him.

Writing

Besides the works mentioned, Thornbury's chief publications were: 1. ‘Lays and Legends, or Ballads of the New World,’ 1851. 2. ‘The Monarchs of the Main, or Adventures of the Buccaneers, illustrated by Phiz,’ 1855. 3. ‘Shakespeare's England, or Sketches of our Social History in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth,’ 2 vols. 1856. 4. ‘Art and Nature at Home and Abroad,’ 2 vols. 1856. 5. ‘Songs of the Cavaliers and Roundheads, illustrated,’ 1857. 6. ‘Pierre Dupont's Legend of the Wandering Jew, translated with Critical Remarks by G. W. T.,’ 1857. 7. ‘Every Man his own Trumpeter,’ 3 vols. 1858. 8. ‘Life in Spain, Past and Present, with eight tinted Illustrations,’ 2 vols. 1860. 9. ‘British Artists, from Hogarth to Turner: a Series of Biographical Sketches,’ 1861. 10. ‘Cross Country,’ 1861. 11. ‘Ice Bound,’ 3 vols. 1861. 12. ‘Tales for the Marines,’ 2 vols. 1865. 13. ‘Greatheart: a Novel,’ 3 vols. 1866. 14. ‘Two Centuries of Song, illustrated,’ 4to, 1867. 15. ‘The Vicar's Courtship,’ 3 vols. 1867. 16. ‘The Fables of La Fontaine, translated into English Verse by G.W.T.,’ 4to, 1867. 17. ‘The Yorkshire Worthies in the National Exhibition,’ 1868. 18. ‘A Tour round England,’ 2 vols. 1870. 19. ‘Criss Cross Journeys,’ 2 vols. 1873.

Publications

Poetry

• Lays and Legends; or, Ballads of the New World. London: Saunders & Otley, 1851.
• Songs of the Cavaliers and Roundheads (illustrated by H.S. Marks). London: Hurst & Blackett, 1857.

Novels

• Every Man His Own Trumpeter. (3 volumes), London: 1858.
• Ice Bound. (3 volumes), London: 1861.
• True as Steel. (3 volumes), London: 1863.
• Wildfire. (3 volumes), London: 1864.
• Greatheart: A novel. (3 volumes), London: 1866.
• The Vicar's Courtship (3 volumes), London: 1859.

Short fiction

• Tales for the Marines. (2 volumes), London: 1865.

Non-fiction

• The Courts of the Crystal Palace in High Park. 1851.
• The Monarchs of the Main; or, Adventures of the buccaneers (illustrated by Phiz). London: Hurst & Blackett, 1855.
• Shakspere's England; or, Sketches of our social history in the reign of Elizabeth. (2 volumes), London: 1856.
• Art and Nature at Home and Abroad. (2 volumes), London: Hurst & Blackett, 1856.
• Life in Spain: Past and present. London: Smith, Elder, 1859.
• The May Exhibition: A guide to pictures in the Royal Academy. London: James S. Virtue, 1860.
• Turkish Life and Character. London: 1860.
• British Artists from Hogarth to Turner. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1861.
• The Life of J.M.W. Turner. (2 volumes), London: Hurst & Blackett, 1861; London: Ward, Lock, 1862; London: Chatto & Windus, 1877; New York: Holt, 1877. Volume I, Volume II
• Haunted London (illustrated by F.W. Fairholt). London: Hurst & Blackett, 1865.
• The Yorkshire Worthies in the National Art Exhibition, at Leeds. Leeds, UK: 1868.
• Old Stories Retold. London: Chapman & Hall, 1870.
• A Tour around England (2 volumes), London: 1870.
• Criss Cross Journeys (2 volumes), London: 1873.
• Old and New London, Illustrated, Volumes I-II. London: 1873; London: Cassell, 1897.

Translated

• Pierre Dupont, Legend of the Wandering Jew. London: Addey, 1857.
• Jean Lafontaine, The Fables: Translated into English verse (illustrated by Gustave Dore). London: 1867; London: Cassell, Petter, & Gilpin, 1871; London: Paris, & New York: 1873.

Edited

• Two Centuries of Song; or, Lyrics, madrigals, sonnets, and other occasional verses of the English poets of the last two hundred years. London: 1867.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

References

•  Kent, William Charles Maak (1898) "Thornbury, George Walter" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 56 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 289-290  . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 6, 2017.

External links

Poems

• "February"
• "The Jester's Sermon"
• "The Sally from Coventry"
• Thornbury in A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895: "The Three Scars," "Melting of the Earl's Plate," "The Three Troopers," "The White Rose over the Water," "The Jacobite on Tower Hill," "The Death of Marlborough," "The Old Grenadier's Story"
• George Walter Thornbury at PoemHunter (2 poems)
• George Walter Thornbury at Poetry Atlas (13 poems)

Books

• Walter Thornbury at the Online Books Page
• George Walter Thornbury at Amazon.com

About

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Thornbury, George Walter