Thomas Love Peacock 1785 - 1866 - Blue Plaques on Waymarking.com

Thomas Love Peacock (18 October 1785 - 23 January 1866) was an English satirist and author.

Peacock was a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and they influenced each other's work. He wrote satirical novels, each with the same basic setting — characters at a table discussing and criticising the philosophical opinions of the day.

Peacock was born in Weymouth, Dorset, the son of Samuel Peacock and his wife Sarah Love, daughter of Thomas Love a retired master of a man-of-war in the Royal Navy. His father was a glass merchant in London, partner of a Mr. Pellatt, presumed to be Apsley Pellatt (1763-1826). Peacock went with his mother to live with her family at Chertsey; Surrey in 1791 and in 1792 went to a school run by Joseph Harris Wicks at Englefield Green where he stayed for six and a half years. His father died in 1794 in "poor circumstances" leaving a small annuity. His first known poem was an epitaph for a schoolfellow written at the age of ten and another on his Midsummer Holidays was written when he was thirteen. Around that time in 1798, he was abruptly taken from school and from then on was entirely self-educated.

Peacock died at Lower Halliford, 23 January 1866, from injuries sustained in a fire in which he had attempted to save his library, and is buried in the new cemetery at Shepperton.

St. Nicholas Church, in Church Square, Shepperton, Middlesex. UK is the solitary grave of Margaret Love Peacock. She was the daughter of Thomas Love Peacock and died when still young. Peacock wrote a poem to his baby daughter, which he had inscribed on a headstone on the grave.

Headstone. Arched head with end finials. Inscribed with an epitaph in the form of a poem composed by Thomas Love Peacock as follows:-

"Long night succeeds thy little day
Oh blighted blossom can it be
That this grey stone and grassy clay
Have closed out anxious care of thee.

The half-formed worlds of liveliest thought
That spoke a mind beyond thy years
The song the dance by nature caught
The sunny smile the transient tears.
The symmetry of face and form
The age with light and life replete
The little heart so fondly warm
The voice so musically sweet.

The saddest to in memory of
Around the hearts that loved the cling
She leaving with long and regret
The in promise of thy spring."

Listed for historical interest.

I have included co-ordanants to my cache below:-
425 - Church Micro 425. St. Nicholas' Shepperton.

N 51° 23.290 W 000° 27.231

This will take you to the gravestone so you can see for yourself.

Blue Plaque managing agency: County of Middlesex Individual Recognized: Thomas Love Peacock ( English Satirist and Author). Physical Address: Halliford House ( Formerly Elmbank and Peacock House) Walton Lane Shepperton, Middlesex UK TW17 8LQ Web Address: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   03/03/2010 Ragged Robin visited it