Samuel Warren (British lawyer)
Samuel Warren | |
---|---|
Born | Rackery Farm near Wrexham, Denbighshire, UK | 23 May 1808
Died | 29 July 1877 London, UK | (aged 69)
Alma mater | University of Edinburgh |
Occupation(s) | British writer, lawyer and politician |
Samuel Warren (23 May 1807 – 29 July 1877) was a British barrister, novelist and MP.
Life
He was born in Wales at Rackery Farm near
Warren attended the
.Entering politics, Warren sat in the House of Commons for Midhurst 1856–1859, and was a Master in Lunacy 1859–77. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in April 1835.[5] He died in London.
Works
Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician, by Warren but initially published anonymously,[6] was a series of sensational tales, fictional case histories, published first in Blackwood's Magazine from August 1830 to 1837. It was hugely successful.[4][7] The frame story to the series is of "early struggles" of a young medical man, and has been taken to contain embellished autobiographical material.[8] In the preface to fifth edition (1855) was Warren's statement that "I was six years actively engaged in the practical study of physic".[9]
The structure and use of professional anecdotes as a vehicle are now considered foundational for later mainstream crime fiction.[10] The tales contributed also to a sub-genre of the short story, known as "Blackwood's fiction", which often used the supernatural, or apparent supernatural, and owed something to John Ferriar and Samuel Hibbert-Ware.[11] Proposed bookends are an 1821 story by William Maginn, and one by Samuel Ferguson in 1837, when Warren's series had concluded.[12]
Warren was also the author of two novels:
- Ten Thousand a-Year (1839), with social satire written from a Tory standpoint. First published in Blackwood's Magazine. It was based on the contemporary peerage claim of Alexander Humphrys-Alexander, a forgery case.
- Now and Then (1847), a social novel of criminality and the law, arguing from a Methodist perspective the moral case for reform. It was based in outline on an actual case in Wolverhampton, and had little success.
The influence of Warren on Charles Dickens has been traced, for example in Bleak House.[4]
Warren was also a legal writer. His Select Extracts from Blackstone's Commentaries (first edition 1836) was with John William Smith, whose name did not appear.[13]
Family
Warren married in 1831 Elizabeth (Eliza) Ballenger (died 1868), daughter of James Ballenger of Woodford Bridge House, Essex, who had married in 1824 W. Vanhouse; they had two sons and a daughter. [4][14][15] Eliza's father, who died in 1830, was a sugar refiner in Davenant Street, Whitechapel.[16][17]
The elder son, Samuel Lilckendey Warren (born 1835), graduated B.A. in 1859 and became an Anglian priest.[14][18] The younger son, Edward Walpole Warren (1838–1903), was another cleric, a Cambridge graduate. He was rector of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Manhattan, from 1887 to 1895.[19]
Warren married, secondly, Louisa Beaumont in 1871.[4]
References
- ^ "Warren, Dr Samuel 1781-1862; e.m. 1802". dmbi.online.
- ^ "Williams family of Gresford, near Wrexham". dmbi.online.
- ^ The United Methodist Free Churches' Magazine. 1878. p. 491.
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28792. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ "Library and Archiv catalogue". Royal Society. Retrieved 30 October 2010.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Halkett, Samuel; Laing, John (1885). A Dictionary of the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of Great Britain: Including the Works of Foreigners Written In, Or Translated Into the English Language. William Paterson. p. 1867.
- ISBN 978-1-4744-0561-4.
- ISBN 978-0-521-52451-3.
- ^ Warren, Samuel (1854). Works of Samuel Warren: Passages from the diary of a late physician. W. Blackwood and Sons. p. 21.
- ISBN 978-0-230-34433-4.
- ISBN 978-0-389-20963-8.
- ISBN 978-0-389-20927-0.
- ISBN 978-0-9630106-5-0.
- ^ a b Walford, Edward (1860). The County Families of the United Kingdom, Or: Royal Manual of the Titled & Untitled Aristocracy of Great Britain & Ireland. Hardwicke. p. 670.
- ^ "Married". Staffordshire Advertiser. 22 May 1824. p. 4.
- ^ "Survey of London, 7-8 Davenant Street". surveyoflondon.org.
- ^ "wills & admons A". www.mawer.clara.net.
- Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715–1886. Oxford: Parker and Co – via Wikisource.
- ^ "Warren, Edward Walpole (WRN858EW)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource.
External links
- Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 330–331. .
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Samuel Warren
- Samuel Warren: A Victorian Law and Literature Practitioner, by C.R.B. Dunlop
- Works by Samuel Warren at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Samuel Warren at Internet Archive