Benjamin Heath Malkin was a British scholar and writer notable for his connection to the artist and poet William Blake

William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

.

Malkin was educated at Harrow School

Harrow School

Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...

 and Cambridge University, receiving his MA in 1802 and his doctorate in 1810. In 1795 he published Essays on Subjects connected with Civilization (C.Dilly, London). From 1809 to 1828 he was headmaster of the Free School in Bury St. Edmunds

Bury St. Edmunds

Bury St Edmunds is a market town in the county of Suffolk, England, and formerly the county town of West Suffolk. It is the main town in the borough of St Edmundsbury and known for the ruined abbey near the town centre...

 where he taught a number of pupils who would later go on to become Cambridge Apostles

Cambridge Apostles

The Cambridge Apostles, also known as the Cambridge Conversazione Society, is an intellectual secret society at the University of Cambridge founded in 1820 by George Tomlinson, a Cambridge student who went on to become the first Bishop of Gibraltar....

. In 1829, Malkin became the first professor of History in the newly formed London University. During his scholarly career he published both historical and creative works on many subjects, including the history of South Wales, a translation of Gil Blas

Gil Blas

Gil Blas is a picaresque novel by Alain-René Lesage published between 1715 and 1735. It is considered to be the last masterpiece of the picaresque genre.-Plot summary:...

, and the play Almahide and Hamet.

Connections with Blake

Today he is remembered for his 1806 book A Father's Memoirs of his Child, which leads off with a 48-page introduction consisting of a dedication to his friend Thomas Johnes

Thomas Johnes

Thomas Johnes , born in Ludlow, Shropshire, England was a Member of Parliament, landscape architect, farmer, printer, writer and social benefactor...

 and the earliest biographical account of Blake. Blake had designed (though it was engraved by Robert Cromek

Robert Cromek

Robert Hartley Cromek was an engraver, editor, art dealer and entrepreneur who was most active in the early nineteenth century. He is best known for having allegedly cheated William Blake out of the potential profits of his engraving depicting Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims.In the early years of...

) the frontispiece depicting Malkin's deceased son. G.E. Bentley suggests that Malkin met Blake in 1803, soon after he returned to London from his three years in Felpham.. It is also possible that the two men were acquainted via the publisher Joseph Johnson

Joseph Johnson

Joseph Johnson may refer to:* Joseph Johnson , London bookseller* Joseph Johnson , U.S...

 for whom Blake had worked. William Godwin

William Godwin

William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...

 reports meeting Malkin at dinner at Horne Tooke's in 1796 and 1797 and at Fuseli

Henry Fuseli

Henry Fuseli was a British painter, draughtsman, and writer on art, of Swiss origin.-Biography:...

's Milton Gallery in 1800. It is therefore likely that Blake and Malkin shared radical sympathies. Malkin also lived close to Blake's patron Thomas Butts in Hackney, London and knew George Cumberland

George Cumberland

George Cumberland was an English art collector, writer and poet. He was a lifelong friend and supporter of William Blake, and like him was an experimental printmaker. He was also an amateur watercolourist, and one of the earliest members of the Bristol School of artists...

, another friend.

In addition to a short biography of Blake, Malkin published a number of Blake's lyric poems. This was the first time they had been published other than in Blake's own original illuminated etchings. Before the publication of Alexander Gilchrist

Alexander Gilchrist

Alexander Gilchrist was the biographer of William Blake. Gilchrist's biography is still a standard reference work on the poet....

's Life of William Blake

Life of William Blake

The Life of William Blake, “Pictor Ignotus.” With selections from his poems and other writings is a two volume work on the English painter and poet William Blake, first published in 1863...

in 1863, Malkin's book was the principal means of public knowledge of Blake's poetry. William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....

 copied poems from it.

A Father's Memoirs of His Child

A Father's Memoirs of His Child is an account of the life and death of Malkin's son Thomas Williams Malkin, who along with his brother Benjamin is described as a child prodigy

Child prodigy

A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, masters one or more skills far beyond his or her level of maturity. One criterion for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 18 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding...

 with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. He apparently learned to read as an infant, and taught himself to write at about age two by copying print in books. Malkin insists that he did not push Thomas but followed his lead and taught him subjects such as Latin or mathematics only by request. Thomas also invented an imaginary country

Fictional country

A fictional country is a country that is made up for fictional stories, and does not exist in real life, or one that people believe in without proof....

 called Allestone, including details of its history, geography and monetary system, and an elaborate (for a five-year-old) map. Much of this material is included in the book, partly as proof that Thomas acted independently and was not coerced to achievements.

The book was written in part because of a confrontation with a "medical expert" the day after Thomas' death. It was his stated belief that Thomas had died of so-called "water on the brain", citing Thomas' "large head" and high intelligence as symptomatic of this disease. In effect, he accused Malkin of causing his son's death through having allowed him to overindulge in mental activity. Thus, Malkin includes the medical details of Thomas' final illness. He also ordered an autopsy, which he says proved conclusively that Thomas died of inflammatory bowel disease

Inflammatory bowel disease

In medicine, inflammatory bowel disease is a group of inflammatory conditions of the colon and small intestine. The major types of IBD are Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.-Classification:...

 and peritonitis

Peritonitis

Peritonitis is an inflammation of the peritoneum, the serous membrane that lines part of the abdominal cavity and viscera. Peritonitis may be localised or generalised, and may result from infection or from a non-infectious process.-Abdominal pain and tenderness:The main manifestations of...

, and that his brain was perfectly normal. Malkin's grief and frustration are expressed vividly in this part of the text.