Samuel Nicholson (merchant) explained

Samuel Nicholson (1738–1827) was a London wholesale haberdasher, known as a Unitarian and associate of radicals. He is remembered for his social connections with William Wordsworth in the early 1790s.

Earlier life

Nicholson was born on 4 September 1738, the son of George Nicholson, and grandson of the nonconformist minister George Nicholson (1636–1690) of Kirkoswald, Cumberland.[1] [2] He was in business in London as a wholesale haberdasher, in Cateaton Street.[3] His warehouse was adjacent to his home.[4]

In the 1780s, Nicholson was a member of the Society for Constitutional Information.[5]

Relationship with Wordsworth

Wordsworth met Nicholson through a family connection, Elizabeth Threlkeld, who had been Dorothy Wordsworth's foster mother (1778–1787) in Halifax, Yorkshire.[6] [7] Elizabeth married William Rawson in 1791; they were both Unitarians. They moved to London from Halifax, knew Nicholson, and introduced William to him.[8]

The period when Wordsworth dined regularly with Nicholson has tentatively been placed in spring of 1793.[9] They went together to hear Joseph Fawcett preach.[5] Nicholas Roe has suggested that Wordsworth's further engagement with radical English reformers may trace back to his connection with Nicholson.[10] It has been inferred, by Roe, that Nicholson probably introduced Wordsworth to Joseph Johnson the publisher.[11] Keay places Wordsworth's own radical beliefs in the context of a period 1793–5 and contact with the views and milieu of the Society of Constitutional Information, to which Johnson also belonged: the Norman Yoke, and the Tory Bolingbroke's arguments on capital and corruption.[12]

Nicholson, in any case, is credited with Wordsworth's introduction into the London group of radical dissenters, including William Godwin. They played a significant part in his thinking, until the middle of 1795.[13] "Mr Nicholson" was referenced in the notes to The Excursion.[14] [15]

Later life

Nicholson was a founding partner of the Glasgow Bank in 1809.[16] He acted as trustee of Dr Williams's Library from 1815 to 1827.[17] He died on 26 October 1827, at Ham Common.[18] In the last year of his life he had donated to the orphan school on City Road.[19]

Family

Nicholson married Mary Haydon.[1] Their eldest daughter Caroline married in 1804 Thomas Hockin Kingdon, Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.[20] Harriet, the fourth daughter, married John Vowler of Parnacott in 1817.[21]

The only son of the marriage was George Thomas Nicholson.[1] He studied at Manchester Academy from 1803 to 1805.[22] In 1806 he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1809. That year he entered the Inner Temple. He became a barrister,[22] and was President of the National Life Assurance Society; it was founded in 1829, was a mutual insurance company from 1847, and merged with the Mutual Life Assurance Society in 1896 to form The National Mutual Life Assurance Society.[23] [24]

Later in life Nicholson was owner of Waverley Abbey, which he bought from John Poulett Thomson.[1] It had been damaged by fire in 1833, and he rebuilt it.[25] He was High Sheriff of Surrey in 1833,[26] and was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1835.[27]

Nicholson married Anne Elizabeth Smith, daughter of William Smith.[28] Of their children, Marianne, the elder daughter, married Douglas Strutt Galton in 1851.[29] [30] Laura Maria, the younger daughter, married in 1848 John Bonham Carter.[31]

The sons were:

Notes and References

  1. Book: Burke, Sir Bernard. A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland. 30 September 2017. 1871. Harrison. 989.
  2. Book: Transactions of the Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society. 1983. The Society. 73. 83.
  3. Book: Wordsworth, Dorothy. The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals. registration. 30 September 2017. 16 May 2002. Oxford University Press, UK. 9780192840622. 190.
  4. Book: Worthen, John. The Life of William Wordsworth: A Critical Biography. 30 September 2017. 28 January 2014. Wiley. 9781118604922. 154.
  5. Book: Gravil. Richard. Robinson. Daniel. The Oxford Handbook of William Wordsworth. 30 September 2017. 22 January 2015. OUP Oxford. 9780191019654. 168.
  6. Book: Curtis, Jared. The Fenwick Notes of William Wordsworth. 30 September 2017. 2011. Lulu.com. 9781847600752. 375.
  7. Book: Healey, Nicola. Dorothy Wordsworth and Hartley Coleridge: The Poetics of Relationship. 30 September 2017. 5 April 2012. Palgrave Macmillan. 9780230277724. 129.
  8. Book: Jones, Rodney. The Pedestrian, Wordsworth. 30 September 2017. 29 May 2014. Lulu.com. 9781291875287. 142.
  9. Book: Pinion, F. B.. Wordsworth Chronology. 30 September 2017. 18 June 1988. Palgrave Macmillan UK. 9781349078899. 15.
  10. Book: Bailey, Quentin. Wordsworth's Vagrants: Police, Prisons, and Poetry in the 1790s. 30 September 2017. 2011. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. 9781409427056. 40.
  11. Book: Wu, Duncan. Wordsworth's Reading 1770-1799. 30 September 2017. 29 January 1993. Cambridge University Press. 9780521416009. 3.
  12. Book: Keay, M.. William Wordsworth's Golden Age Theories During the Industrial Revolution. 30 September 2017. 26 September 2001. Palgrave Macmillan UK. 9781403919564. 185.
  13. 29973. Stephen. Gill. Wordsworth, William.
  14. Book: Chard, Leslie F.. Dissenting Republican: Wordsworth's early life and thought in their political context. 30 September 2017. 1 January 1972. De Gruyter. 9783111391618. 110.
  15. Book: Wordsworth, Christopher. Memoirs of William Wordsworth. 30 September 2017. 25 September 2014. Cambridge University Press. 9781108075749. 34.
  16. Book: Banking in Glasgow during the olden time. By G.. 1862. 25.
  17. Book: Library. Dr. Williams's. Jones. Stephen Kay. A Short Account of the Charity & Library Established Under the Will of the Late Rev. Daniel Williams. 1917. Elsom and Company. 136.
  18. Book: Urban, Sylvanus. The Gentlemen's Magazine and Historical Chronicle. From July to December, 1827. 30 September 2017. 1827. 476.
  19. Book: The Congregational magazine [formerly The London Christian instructor].]. 1836. 200.
  20. Book: Boase, Charles William. Registrum Collegii exoniensis. Register of the rectors, fellows, and other members on the foundation of Exeter college, Oxford. With a history of the college and illustrative documents. 1894. Internet Archive. Oxford Historical Society. 161. 30 September 2017. Oxford.
  21. Book: Burke, John. A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland: M to Z. 30 September 2017. 1846. Henry Colburn. 1481.
  22. Book: Roll of students entered at the Manchester academy, 1786–1803; Manchester college, York, 1803–1840; Manchester new college, Manchester, 1840–1853; Manchester new college, London, 1853–1867. 1868. 1826. Oxford City. Manchester Coll.
  23. Book: The British Imperial Calendar, on General Register of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and Its Colonies (etc.). 1849. Arthur Varenham. 333.
  24. https://www.reassure.co.uk/uploads/2015/12/DOC0056_PPFM_NMWPF_201609.pdf ReAssure, Principles and Practices of Financial Management (PDF)
  25. Book: Stutchbury, Howard Edward. The Architecture of Colen Campbell. registration. 1 October 2017. 1967. Manchester University Press. 150 note 32.
  26. Book: The New Monthly Magazine. 1833. 536.
  27. Book: Proceedings of the Geological Society of London. 1838. 240.
  28. 20144. Roger T.. Stearn. Nicholson, Sir Lothian.
  29. Book: Cook, Sir Edward Tyas. The Life of Florence Nightingale. 1 October 2017. 1913. Library of Alexandria. 9781465539540. 43.
  30. Book: Thom's Directory of Ireland. 1874. 360.
  31. Web site: Spectator Archive. 22 July 1848. The Spectator. 20. 30 September 2017.
  32. Book: The Gentleman's Magazine. 1849. A. Dodd and A. Smith. 314.

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