Charles Lamb - Giltspur Street, London, UK
N 51° 31.001 W 000° 06.105
30U E 701082 N 5711267
This bust of Charles Lamb is attached to the east face of St Sepulchre's church on the west side of Giltspur Street in the City of London.
Waymark Code: WMK9CF
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/04/2014
Views: 3
This life-size bronze busts shows the head and shoulders of a young Charles Lamb in Bluecoat attire. The bust is set into a stone surround that has an inscription over the top of Lamb's head that reads:
To the immortal memory of
The plinth on which the bust sits is also inscribed with:
Charles Lamb
At the base of the stone surround is a plaque that is inscribed:
Perhaps the most loved name
in English literature who
was a Bluecoat boy here for
7 years
b 1775 d 1834
Below the stone surround is a further plaque that reads:
This memorial was moved here in
December 1962
from Christchurch Greyfriars in
Newgate Street
which stands beside the former site of
Charles Lamb's school Christ's Hospital
The Spartacus Educational website tells us:
Charles Lamb was born in London in 1775. He studied at Christ's Hospital where he formed a lifelong friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
When Lamb was twenty years old Lamb suffered a period of insanity. His sister, Mary Ann Lamb, had similar problems and in 1796 murdered her mother in a fit of madness. Mary was confined to an asylum but was eventually released into the care of her brother.
Lamb became friends in London with a group of young writers who favoured political reform including Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Hazlitt, Henry Brougham, Lord Byron, Thomas Barnes and Leigh Hunt. In 1796 Lamb contributed four sonnets to Coleridge's Poems on Various Subjects (1796). This was followed by Blank Verse (1798) and Pride's Cure (1802).
Lamb worked for the East India Company in London but managed to contribute articles to several journals and newspapers including London Magazine, The Morning Chronicle, Morning Post and the The Quarterly Review.