Who was Edward Gibbon?
First modern historian and Member of Parliament.
Date and Place of Birth:
8th May 1737, Lime Grove manor, Putney, London,
England.
Family Background:
Father, also called Edward was well off due to
inheriting a fortune from his own father. He lived in society and
parliament. His mother was Judith Porten.
Education:
Private tuition by John Kirkby a clergyman. Grammar
school in Kingston-on-Thames run by Dr Wooddeson. Westminster School.
Magdalen College, Oxford.
Chronology/Biography of Edward Gibbon:
1747: Death of his
mother.
1750: Forced to leave
Westminster School due to ill health and goes to Bath to take the
waters.
1751: Health improves
and he begins to become interested in history.
1752: Edward Gibbon
enters Oxford University as a gentleman commoner where, by his own
admission, he spends an idle life.
1753: Converts to
catholicism. He father sends him to Lausanne in Switzerland as a
punishment and he is tutored by a Calvinist teacher Daniel Pavillard.
He meets Jacques Georges Deyverdun who translated Goethe's "The
Sorrows of Young Werther" into French and John Baker Holroyd
who later became Lord Sheffield.
1754: Converts back
to Protestantism.
1755: His father
marries again to Dorothea Patton. Spends his time reading mathematics
and latin.
1757: Meets Voltaire
who describes him as an English youth. Falls in love with Suzanne
Curchod the daughter of the Pastor of Crassy and proposes to her.
They become engaged.
1758: Edward Gibbon
begins writing the “Essai sur L'Etude de la Litterature”. Breaks
off with Curchod after resistance from his father and returns to
England and spends much of his time at New Bond Street in London.
1759: Serves as an
officer in the South Hampshire Militia.
1761: Notices he
has a lump near his genitals and consults a surgeon Caesar Hawkins
and also Mr Andrews. Begins keeping a detailed diary.
1763: Gibbon goes
on a grand Tour and arrives in Paris. Goes on to Lausanne.
1764: Meets Suzanne
Curchod once more and makes a final break with her. Leaves Lausanne
and goes on to Italy with William Guise where he tours Turin, Milan,
Genoa, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Pisa, Rome and Naples. Makes a
detailed tour of the Roman forum in October and it was there that
he got his idea for writing the "History of the Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire".
1765: Returns to
England.
1768: Publishes two
volumes of the literary review "Mémoires littéraires
de la Grande-Bretagne" with his friend Deyverdun.
1769: Deyverdun returns
to the Continent.
1770: Gibbon resigns
his commission in the Hampshire Militia. Death of his father. His
inheritance now gives him financial stability.
1772: Leases out
the Buriton family estate and moves to 7 Bentick St, Cavendish Square,
London.
1773: First starts
writing the "History of the the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire." He succeeded Oliver Goldsmith
as Professor in Ancient History at the Royal Academy.
1774: Elected as
a Member of Parliament for Liskeard in Cornwall. He is nominated
to be a member of Samuel Johnson's Literary
Club by Oliver Goldsmith but is blackballed,
meaning that an anonymous member had refused his admission. He is
later admitted. Achieves a contract with the publishers Strahan
& Cadell. He was initiated a freemason of the Premier Grand
Lodge of England
1775: Delivers Volume
One of the "Decline and Fall" to his publishers.
1776: The work is
published for the first time and meets with a hostile reception.
One of his major detractors is Joseph Priestley.
1777: Leaves for
an extended trip to Paris, where he meets Benjamin Franklin.
1778: Gibbon starts
work on Volume Two of the "Decline and Fall".
1779: Appointed to
the Board of Trade and Plantations by the Government. Loses his
Liskeard seat in Parliament when his Patron Edward Eliot defects
to the opposition.
1781: Publication
of Volumes two and Three of the "Decline and Fall". Elected
as Member of Parliament for Lymington.
1782: Starts work
on Volume Four of the "Decline and Fall". Loses his position
on the Board of Trade.
1783: Gibbon leaves
London to live in Lausanne with Deyverdun at his estate called La
Grotte.
1785: Starts work
on Volume Five of the "Decline and Fall" although progress
is interrupt red by an attack of gout.
1786: Volume Five
completed.
1787: Volume Six
completed and with it the entire project. Returns to England with
the manuscript and is paid £4,000 by his publisher.
1788: Volumes four
to six of the "Decline and Fall" are published. He returns
to Lausanne and starts composing his memoirs. Adam Smith remarked
that Gibbon's triumph had made him "at the very head of the
literary tribe."
1789: Death of Deyverdun
which means he inherits La Grotte.
1790: Reads Edmund
Burkes "Reflections on the Revolution in France" which
he agrees with.
1791: Gibbon hears
of the Terror in Paris from friends.
1792: Fears a French
invasion of Switzerland.
1793: Returns to
England an stays with Lord Sheffield after the death of his wife.
In August the swelling in his lower body increases rapidly. Becomes
dangerously ill from and moves to 76 St James Street, London with
his friend the bookseller Peter Elmsley.
1794: Gibbon has
three operations to drain fluid from his body but things get worse
as the knives were not sterile.
(1796): Lord Sheffield
published "The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon" in
2 volumes.
Written Works:
- 1761:
“Essai sur L'Etude de la Litterature”.
- 1770: "Critical
Observations on the Sixth Book of the 'Aeneid' (anonymous)
- 1776: “The Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire”.
- 1792: "On
a Grander Scale" (Memoirs)
Marriage:
Never married but was forced to break off his
engagement to Suzanna Curchod by his disapproving father. He kept
in touch with Curchod all his life, even after she later married
Jacques Necker the Finance Minister of King Louis the Sixteenth
of France and became the mother of Madame de Staël.
Date and Place of Death:
16th June 1794, London, England from peritonitis.
Age at Death:
57.
Site of Grave:
North transept of the St. Mary and St.
Andrew’s parish church, Fletching, East Sussex, England in a plot
owned by Lord Sheffield's family .
Places of Interest:
CORNWALL:
Liskeard
SUSSEX:
Sheffield Park (wrote some of the Decline and
Fall").
