Richard Alfred Davenport (1777–1852) was an English miscellaneous writer.
Davenport was born inLambeth on 18 January 1777,[1] and started work as a writer in London at an early age. In the late 1790s he knewJohn Britton andPeter Lionel Courtier through a debating society, the "School of Eloquence".[2][3]
Davenport wrote large portions of the history, biography, geography, and criticism in Rivington'sAnnual Register for several years (1792 to 1797, according toJohn Britton).[2] He edited, with lives, a number of the British poets for theChiswick Press edition in 100 volumes (1822); the biographies were supplied from the existing onesSamuel Johnson, with Davenport,Samuel Weller Singer, and some others, writing the rest.[4][5] Later he did much work forThomas Tegg.[2]
For the last 11 years of his life Davenport lived at Brunswick Cottage, Park Street,Camberwell, a freehold house of which he was the owner. Here he lived and working alone, drinking large quantities oflaudanum, in some squalor at the end. On Sunday, 25 January 1852, a passing policeman was attracted by someone moaning. He broke into the house and discovered Davenport unconscious, with a laudanum bottle in his hand. He died before anything could be done for him. An inquest found his death to be an accidental overdose.[4]
Besides his work for the Chiswick PressPoets, Davenport compiledA Dictionary of Biography (1831), and produced an edition ofMatthew Pilkington'sGeneral Dictionary of Painters (1852).[4]
Davenport also wrote:[4]
ToMurray's Family Library Davenport contributed:
Davenport translated many works, and contributed to periodical literature articles on biography, poetry, criticism, and other subjects. He was also a writer of verse.[4] Some of it was set to music, by his friendTimothy Essex.[6]
Editorial roles included the works ofWilliam Robertson the historian, with life, 1824;William Mitford'sHistory of Greece, with continuation to the death of Alexander, 1835; and some works like William Guthrie'sGeographical, Historical, and Commercial Grammar, andWilliam Enfield'sSpeaker.[4]
Davenport married in 1800;[1] they later separated, and she became a novelist under her married nameSelina Davenport. They had two daughters together; a son Theodore Alfred Davenport was not from this marriage.[7]Elizabeth Gaskell encountered Selina Davenport inKnutsford around 1850.[8]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1888). "Davenport, Richard Alfred".Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 14. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
