Richard Sharp (politician)
Encyclopedia
Richard Sharp, FRS
, FSA
(born Newfoundland
1759; died Dorchester, 30 March 1835), also known as "Conversation" Sharp, was a hat-maker, banker, merchant, poet, critic, British
politician
, but above all - doyen of the conversationalists.
England, and in 1756 he joined the British army as a nineteen year old Ensign in His Majesty’s 40th Regiment of Foot – a regiment which would later became known as the “illustrious 40th” after distinguishing itself during the Seven Year's War against the French
in North America (1756–1763). While garrisoned at St. John's
in Newfoundland
, Ensign Richard Sharp met and fell in love with Elizabeth Adams, a citizen of St John’s, and they were married in 1759. Richard and Elizabeth’s first son was soon born and, though naming him ‘Richard’, they can have had little idea that when he grew up he would become variously known throughout London society as ‘Hatter Sharp’, ‘Furrier Sharp’, ‘Copenhagen Sharp’ (after a famous speech that he gave as an MP castigating the British bombardment of Copenhagen) or, most famously of all, as ‘Conversation Sharp’
Long before this time, and while the Lieutenant was still in North America fighting the war, his grandfather was establishing a highly successful firm of hat-makers on Fish Street Hill in the very heart of London. Thither, in about 1763, the wounded soldier and his family returned from Newfoundland and there he died a few years later at the age of twenty eight. His grandfather had been a close friend of Isaac Watts
, all the family being staunch Dissenters, so Richard was buried in the family vault within the Dissenters’ graveyard at Bunhill Fields
(where his tomb-stone is still visible).
In 1769, the widow Elizabeth Sharp married Thomas Cable Davis, a partner in the hatter’s business, and they had further children, while it was not long before Richard Sharp, still in his teens, began to assume a major responsibility for the family business as evidence of his exceptional abilities.
, and a friendship sprang up between the two which lasted until Fell's death. At the age of 24, Sharp wrote the "Preface" to Fell's influential book, An Essay towards an English Grammar (1784), a work which is still acknowledged and quoted to this day. Graduating from Fell's care, Sharp returned to the family home/business at 6 Fish Street Hill to begin a 7-year apprenticeship to become a master hatter. In this role he excelled, not only rescuing the business from imminent commercial failure but gradually developing his exceptional erudition and powers of conversation in such a way as to enable him to rise from the humble ranks of hatter to reach celebrity status in several different spheres of life. A commentator described Sharp at about the age of thirty as,
Sharp thought seriously about joining the legal profession and he was admitted to the Inner Temple
on 24 January 1786. It seems however that his strict moral conscience could not be reconciled with the prospect of having to defend a guilty man, and in the end he was not called to the Bar. In 1798 he finally retired from the hatter's business and joined a firm of West India merchants run by his friend Samuel Boddington
in Mark Lane, a third partner later becoming Sir George Philips. Sharp made so much money as a merchant, and through his investments and banking connections, that he eventually left an incredible £250,000 in his Will. He was once described as being ‘one of the most considerable merchants in London’ and his acquired knowledge of the shipping business enabled him to give crucial support and advice to Samuel Coleridge in 1804 when the poet was about to leave England for health reasons. Indeed, as a respected London critic, Sharp gave important assistance and encouragement to both Coleridge and Wordsworth, among many others, and although much of their correspondence with Sharp has been sold overseas, some may still be seen within the poets' collected works.
John William Ward, later Earl of Dudley
, was not only a man of immense personal wealth but similarly renowned for being an extremely talented, quick-witted and humorous man with a tenacious memory. He described Richard Sharp as,
Francis Horner
, an original contributor to the Edinburgh Review
and a barrister before he turned to politics, met Sharp when he came to London:
Horner later wrote to Lady Mackintosh in 1805 in the same admiring tones, complaining that he simply could not get enough of Sharp’s company and telling her ‘….Sharp I respect and love more and more every day; he has every day new talents and new virtues to show’. Her husband, Sir James Mackintosh, was one of the few people that Sharp felt able to discuss metaphysics with and he expressed the opinion that Richard Sharp had made a greater influence on his thinking than almost any other person. In Byron’s opinion Sharp was one of those who had ‘lived much with the best - Fox
, Horne Tooke, Windham
, Fitzpatrick and all the agitators of other times and tongues..’ while Macaulay
was similarly impressed by Sharp when he commented in a letter to his sister before leaving for India,
As a young man Sharp met Samuel Johnson
and Edmund Burke
and dined regularly with Boswell
. He was also a close friend of Mrs Siddons, and of John Henderson
the actor - who once asked him to report on the acting ability of an up-and-coming rival, John Kemble
, which Sharp did and his accurate account of Kemble may still be read.
and the Revolution Controversy
.) He belonged to the Society for Constitutional Information
and helped, with other leading Whigs, to establish the Friends of the People society. At about the same time he became one of the Dissenters' ‘Deputies’ – it being the custom for each dissenting congregation within ten miles of London to be represented by two such deputies and their common aim being to overturn the notorious Test Act
s which so discriminated against them. In this latter connection Sharp issued a famous ‘Letter’ in support of repeal which may still be viewed within the British Library records.
, began to emerge as the most eminent and popular poet of that period (his poem "To a Friend" being dedicated to Sharp) and both visited Wordsworth in the Lakes and gave him important 'city' support before this new, naturalistic style of poetry became truly fashionable. The Rogers family in Newington Green
was a well known one in Dissenting circles, and the names of Joseph Priestley
, Samuel Parr
, Richard Price
, Dr John Fell, Kippis and Towers were eminently familiar to both men. Apart from a common interest in Unitarianism
, both Sharp and Rogers became well known for their good taste at a time when ‘taste’ was one of the most vital commodities that an aspiring young man could acquire. Rogers’ home in St James’s Place was visited by almost every famous person in London and he was a guest of royalty. Both men were habitues at the fashionable Whig salon, Holland House, and considerable correspondence between Sharp and Lord and Lady Holland has survived to this day. When Sharp moved to his house in Park Lane he acquired portraits painted by Reynolds of Johnson, Burke and of Reynolds himself as symbols of those things that he most cherished – language, oratory and art. At his cottage retreat, in Mickleham
, Surrey, he received politicians, artists, scientists and some of the cleverest minds of the day including people from abroad such as the intriguing but formidable Mme de Staël. Other friends were Henry Hallam
, Thomas Colley Grattan
, Sydney Smith
and James Mill
.
conversation club as well as a leading figure in founding the London Institution
in 1806, a venue for popular education and a forerunner of London University
. He belonged to a great many London Clubs and Societies, such as Brooks's
, the Athenaeum
, the 'Unincreasable', the 'Eumelean' and White's
. An early member of the Literary Society
, in 1787 he became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
and in 1806 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
, his application for the latter being supported by such names as Charles Burney
Jnr, James Watt
and Humphry Davy
. During the period 1810-1812 Sharp was appointed Prime Warden of the Fishmongers' Company in London and at different times represented the Whig party as a dissenting Member of Parliament
for Castle Rising
from 1806 to 1812, Portarlington
from 1816 to 1819 and Ilchester
from 1826 to 1827. In the House of Commons he often sat next to his friend, Samuel Whitbread, and supported his move for popular education.
and John Quincey Adams about this and other matters. He also considered writing a tourist’s guide to Europe after becoming so familiar with continental travel that he was once called 'the Thomas Cook
of his day’. In the event his only publication was a slim volume of 'Letters and Essays in Prose and Verse' published shortly before his death.
Towards the end of his life Sharp liked to spend the winter months at his house in Torquay (Higher Terrace) where he was able to look out to sea and no doubt think fondly of his birthplace in Newfoundland. He had suffered all his life with a cough and a bad chest and Torquay was noted for both its health-giving air and Italianate landscape, but in 1834 the winter was particularly severe and as Sharp succumbed he resolved that he would die in his beloved London. He set off for the city with his family and servants but only got as far as Dorchester before expiring at the coaching inn there. Fearful that a nephew might obtain and subvert his Will, we are told that 70-year-old George Philips, in a final act of kindness, set off on his horse Canon and rode through the night as fast as he could to ensure that this did not occur!
Richard 'Conversation' Sharp never married but in about 1812 he adopted an infant, Maria Kinnaird
, who had been orphaned by a catastrophic volcano eruption in the West Indies. Maria, as a teenager, knew Wordsworth
's daughter, Dora
, very well and in later life she led an interesting and colourful life in London Society . Macaulay and Romilly (son of Samuel Romilly
, were among many eligible young men who were said to be enamoured of Maria but in 1835 she married Thomas Drummond
, who later became Undersecretary for Ireland.
. One commentator is in no doubt that this man's particular role was pivotal in the establishment of this important Institution when he wrote that it was…
As a pioneer and champion of adult education, Sharp’s initiative predates that of his better known contemporary, George Birkbeck
, whose Mechanics' Institutes
only developed in Glasgow, London and elsewhere from the 1820s onwards. Like Sharp, Birkbeck was from a dissenter background and both were committed to making education more democratically available. Indeed, history would show that many of the founders of the London Institution would be those who joined with Thomas Campbell and Henry Brougham to found a new University for London incorporating Birkbeck's Mechanics'
Institute as Birkbeck College
.
At the very beginning of its life, Richard Sharp was a member of the Institution’s Temporary Management Committee and he remained a Manager for most of his life. In 1810 he served as their Chairman, resigning from this position on 10 September 1812, and for the years 1827 and 1831 he was Vice-President. Throughout his long period of office he was brought into contact with many leading artists, thinkers and men of science, and as his interest in education grew he supported Whitbread’s move for a proper system of state education as well as Henry Brougham’s drive for a fully-fledged city University.
Richard Sharp is a sadly forgotten personality of his age and his biography has surely been a glaring omission from any history of the period. This has recently been corrected by a scholarly volume, privately published as Conversation Sharp - The Biography of a London Gentleman, Richard Sharp (1759–1835), in Letters, Prose and Verse (2004), of which a copy is in many leading British Libraries. A single, contemporary image of Sharp is known to exist, an excellent master drawing which is held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
, FSA
Society of Antiquaries of London
The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...
(born Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
1759; died Dorchester, 30 March 1835), also known as "Conversation" Sharp, was a hat-maker, banker, merchant, poet, critic, British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
, but above all - doyen of the conversationalists.
Family background
Sharp’s father, also Richard Sharp, came from a well-known family of merchants in RomseyRomsey
Romsey is a small market town in the county of Hampshire, England.It is 8 miles northwest of Southampton and 11 miles southwest of Winchester, neighbouring the village of North Baddesley...
England, and in 1756 he joined the British army as a nineteen year old Ensign in His Majesty’s 40th Regiment of Foot – a regiment which would later became known as the “illustrious 40th” after distinguishing itself during the Seven Year's War against the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in North America (1756–1763). While garrisoned at St. John's
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
St. John's is the capital and largest city in Newfoundland and Labrador, and is the oldest English-founded city in North America. It is located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. With a population of 192,326 as of July 1, 2010, the St...
in Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
, Ensign Richard Sharp met and fell in love with Elizabeth Adams, a citizen of St John’s, and they were married in 1759. Richard and Elizabeth’s first son was soon born and, though naming him ‘Richard’, they can have had little idea that when he grew up he would become variously known throughout London society as ‘Hatter Sharp’, ‘Furrier Sharp’, ‘Copenhagen Sharp’ (after a famous speech that he gave as an MP castigating the British bombardment of Copenhagen) or, most famously of all, as ‘Conversation Sharp’
Long before this time, and while the Lieutenant was still in North America fighting the war, his grandfather was establishing a highly successful firm of hat-makers on Fish Street Hill in the very heart of London. Thither, in about 1763, the wounded soldier and his family returned from Newfoundland and there he died a few years later at the age of twenty eight. His grandfather had been a close friend of Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts was an English hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymnwriter, he was recognised as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns...
, all the family being staunch Dissenters, so Richard was buried in the family vault within the Dissenters’ graveyard at Bunhill Fields
Bunhill Fields
Bunhill Fields is a cemetery in the London Borough of Islington, north of the City of London, and managed by the City of London Corporation. It is about 4 hectares in extent, although historically was much larger....
(where his tomb-stone is still visible).
In 1769, the widow Elizabeth Sharp married Thomas Cable Davis, a partner in the hatter’s business, and they had further children, while it was not long before Richard Sharp, still in his teens, began to assume a major responsibility for the family business as evidence of his exceptional abilities.
Biography
Until the age of 13/14, Richard Sharp was educated at Thaxted, Essex, by the Rev. John Fell, a Dissenting ministerEnglish Dissenters
English Dissenters were Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.They originally agitated for a wide reaching Protestant Reformation of the Established Church, and triumphed briefly under Oliver Cromwell....
, and a friendship sprang up between the two which lasted until Fell's death. At the age of 24, Sharp wrote the "Preface" to Fell's influential book, An Essay towards an English Grammar (1784), a work which is still acknowledged and quoted to this day. Graduating from Fell's care, Sharp returned to the family home/business at 6 Fish Street Hill to begin a 7-year apprenticeship to become a master hatter. In this role he excelled, not only rescuing the business from imminent commercial failure but gradually developing his exceptional erudition and powers of conversation in such a way as to enable him to rise from the humble ranks of hatter to reach celebrity status in several different spheres of life. A commentator described Sharp at about the age of thirty as,
Sharp thought seriously about joining the legal profession and he was admitted to the Inner Temple
Inner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
on 24 January 1786. It seems however that his strict moral conscience could not be reconciled with the prospect of having to defend a guilty man, and in the end he was not called to the Bar. In 1798 he finally retired from the hatter's business and joined a firm of West India merchants run by his friend Samuel Boddington
Samuel Boddington
Samuel Boddington was an Irish politician. He was Member of Parliament for Tralee from January to May 1807....
in Mark Lane, a third partner later becoming Sir George Philips. Sharp made so much money as a merchant, and through his investments and banking connections, that he eventually left an incredible £250,000 in his Will. He was once described as being ‘one of the most considerable merchants in London’ and his acquired knowledge of the shipping business enabled him to give crucial support and advice to Samuel Coleridge in 1804 when the poet was about to leave England for health reasons. Indeed, as a respected London critic, Sharp gave important assistance and encouragement to both Coleridge and Wordsworth, among many others, and although much of their correspondence with Sharp has been sold overseas, some may still be seen within the poets' collected works.
Powers as a conversationalist
Despite his modest roots, Richard Sharp’s exceptional cleverness and powers of conversation gained him acceptance in the highest social circles and led to him acquiring his lasting sobriquet. Although he achieved distinction in many areas, he nevertheless seems to have made most impact upon people simply because of his basic human kindness and wisdom, as a few quotes from some of those who knew him well will illustrate:John William Ward, later Earl of Dudley
Earl of Dudley
Earl of Dudley, of Dudley Castle in the County of Stafford, is a title that has been created twice in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, both times for members of the Ward family. This family descends from Sir Humble Ward, the son of a wealthy goldsmith and jeweller to King Charles I...
, was not only a man of immense personal wealth but similarly renowned for being an extremely talented, quick-witted and humorous man with a tenacious memory. He described Richard Sharp as,
Francis Horner
Francis Horner
Francis Horner was a Scottish Whig MP for St. Ives in 1806, Wendover in 1807, and St. Mawes in 1812 ....
, an original contributor to the Edinburgh Review
Edinburgh Review
The Edinburgh Review, founded in 1802, was one of the most influential British magazines of the 19th century. It ceased publication in 1929. The magazine took its Latin motto judex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur from Publilius Syrus.In 1984, the Scottish cultural magazine New Edinburgh Review,...
and a barrister before he turned to politics, met Sharp when he came to London:
Horner later wrote to Lady Mackintosh in 1805 in the same admiring tones, complaining that he simply could not get enough of Sharp’s company and telling her ‘….Sharp I respect and love more and more every day; he has every day new talents and new virtues to show’. Her husband, Sir James Mackintosh, was one of the few people that Sharp felt able to discuss metaphysics with and he expressed the opinion that Richard Sharp had made a greater influence on his thinking than almost any other person. In Byron’s opinion Sharp was one of those who had ‘lived much with the best - Fox
Charles James Fox
Charles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...
, Horne Tooke, Windham
William Wyndham
William Wyndham may refer to:*Sir William Wyndham, 1st Baronet , of Orchard Wyndham, English politician, Member of Parliament for Somerset, 1656–1658 and for Taunton 1660–1679...
, Fitzpatrick and all the agitators of other times and tongues..’ while Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay PC was a British poet, historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer, and on British history...
was similarly impressed by Sharp when he commented in a letter to his sister before leaving for India,
As a young man Sharp met Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
and Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
and dined regularly with Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
. He was also a close friend of Mrs Siddons, and of John Henderson
John Henderson
-Politics:*Sir John Henderson, 5th Baronet British Member of Parliament for Seaford 1785–86*John Henderson , British Liberal MP for Durham 1864–74...
the actor - who once asked him to report on the acting ability of an up-and-coming rival, John Kemble
John Kemble
John Kemble may refer to:*John Kemble , Roman Catholic martyr*John Philip Kemble, English actor and manager*John H. Kemble, American maritime historian...
, which Sharp did and his accurate account of Kemble may still be read.
Political reform
By the late 1780s Sharp was at the hub of the Dissenter movement in London at a crucial period in history when Revolution was in the air and when young intellectual Whigs such as he fell under natural suspicion. (See Richard PriceRichard Price
Richard Price was a British moral philosopher and preacher in the tradition of English Dissenters, and a political pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the American Revolution. He fostered connections between a large number of people, including writers of the...
and the Revolution Controversy
Revolution Controversy
The Revolution Controversy was a British debate over the French Revolution, lasting from 1789 through 1795. A pamphlet war began in earnest after the publication of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France , which surprisingly supported the French aristocracy...
.) He belonged to the Society for Constitutional Information
Society for Constitutional Information
Founded in 1780 by Major John Cartwright to promote parliamentary reform, the Society for Constitutional Information flourished until 1783, but thereafter made little headway...
and helped, with other leading Whigs, to establish the Friends of the People society. At about the same time he became one of the Dissenters' ‘Deputies’ – it being the custom for each dissenting congregation within ten miles of London to be represented by two such deputies and their common aim being to overturn the notorious Test Act
Test Act
The Test Acts were a series of English penal laws that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and Nonconformists...
s which so discriminated against them. In this latter connection Sharp issued a famous ‘Letter’ in support of repeal which may still be viewed within the British Library records.
Friends and acquaintances
Sharp’s reputation as a critic increased when his close friend, Samuel RogersSamuel Rogers
Samuel Rogers was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron...
, began to emerge as the most eminent and popular poet of that period (his poem "To a Friend" being dedicated to Sharp) and both visited Wordsworth in the Lakes and gave him important 'city' support before this new, naturalistic style of poetry became truly fashionable. The Rogers family in Newington Green
Newington Green
Newington Green is an open space in north London which straddles the border between Islington and Hackney. It gives its name to the surrounding area, roughly bounded by Ball's Pond Road to the south, Petherton Road to the west, the southern section of Stoke Newington with Green Lanes-Matthias Road...
was a well known one in Dissenting circles, and the names of Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...
, Samuel Parr
Samuel Parr
Samuel Parr , was an English schoolmaster, writer, minister and Doctor of Law. He was known in his time for political writing, and as "the Whig Johnson", though his reputation has lasted less well that Samuel Johnson's, and the resemblances were at a superficial level, Parr being no prose stylist,...
, Richard Price
Richard Price
Richard Price was a British moral philosopher and preacher in the tradition of English Dissenters, and a political pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the American Revolution. He fostered connections between a large number of people, including writers of the...
, Dr John Fell, Kippis and Towers were eminently familiar to both men. Apart from a common interest in Unitarianism
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
, both Sharp and Rogers became well known for their good taste at a time when ‘taste’ was one of the most vital commodities that an aspiring young man could acquire. Rogers’ home in St James’s Place was visited by almost every famous person in London and he was a guest of royalty. Both men were habitues at the fashionable Whig salon, Holland House, and considerable correspondence between Sharp and Lord and Lady Holland has survived to this day. When Sharp moved to his house in Park Lane he acquired portraits painted by Reynolds of Johnson, Burke and of Reynolds himself as symbols of those things that he most cherished – language, oratory and art. At his cottage retreat, in Mickleham
Mickleham
Mickleham may refer to:* Mickleham, Victoria, Australia* Mickleham, Surrey, England...
, Surrey, he received politicians, artists, scientists and some of the cleverest minds of the day including people from abroad such as the intriguing but formidable Mme de Staël. Other friends were Henry Hallam
Henry Hallam
Henry Hallam was an English historian.-Life:The only son of John Hallam, canon of Windsor and dean of Bristol, Henry Hallam was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, graduating in 1799...
, Thomas Colley Grattan
Thomas Colley Grattan
Thomas Colley Grattan , was an Irish miscellaneous writer.Born in Dublin, he was educated for the law, but did not practise. He wrote a few novels, including The Heiress of Bruges ; but his best work was Highways and Byways, a description of his Continental wanderings, of which he published three...
, Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith was an English writer and Anglican cleric. -Life:Born in Woodford, Essex, England, Smith was the son of merchant Robert Smith and Maria Olier , who suffered from epilepsy...
and James Mill
James Mill
James Mill was a Scottish historian, economist, political theorist, and philosopher. He was a founder of classical economics, together with David Ricardo, and the father of influential philosopher of classical liberalism, John Stuart Mill.-Life:Mill was born at Northwater Bridge, in the parish of...
.
Clubs and politics
Sharp was a founder member of the intellectual 'King of Clubs’King of Clubs (Whig club)
The King of Clubs club - a famous Whig conversation club, founded in 1798The King of Clubs club was perhaps the most distinguished conversation club ever to have existed and, in contrast to its mainly Tory forerunner it was a predominantly Whig fraternity of some of the most brilliant minds of the...
conversation club as well as a leading figure in founding the London Institution
London Institution
The London Institution was an educational institution founded in London in 1806...
in 1806, a venue for popular education and a forerunner of London University
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
. He belonged to a great many London Clubs and Societies, such as Brooks's
Brooks's
Brooks's is one of London's most exclusive gentlemen's clubs, founded in 1764 by 27 men, including four dukes. From its inception, it was the meeting place for Whigs of the highest social order....
, the Athenaeum
Athenaeum Club, London
The Athenaeum Club, usually just referred to as the Athenaeum, is a notable London club with its Clubhouse located at 107 Pall Mall, London, England, at the corner of Waterloo Place....
, the 'Unincreasable', the 'Eumelean' and White's
White's
White's is a London gentlemen's club, established at 4 Chesterfield Street in 1693 by Italian immigrant Francesco Bianco . Originally it was established to sell hot chocolate, a rare and expensive commodity at the time...
. An early member of the Literary Society
Literary society
A literary society is a group of people interested in literature. In the modern sense, this refers to a society that wants to promote one genre of literature or a specific writer. Modern literary societies typically promote research about their chosen author or genre, publish newsletters, and hold...
, in 1787 he became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
Society of Antiquaries of London
The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...
and in 1806 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
, his application for the latter being supported by such names as Charles Burney
Charles Burney
Charles Burney FRS was an English music historian and father of authors Frances Burney and Sarah Burney.-Life and career:...
Jnr, James Watt
James Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...
and Humphry Davy
Humphry Davy
Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet FRS MRIA was a British chemist and inventor. He is probably best remembered today for his discoveries of several alkali and alkaline earth metals, as well as contributions to the discoveries of the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine...
. During the period 1810-1812 Sharp was appointed Prime Warden of the Fishmongers' Company in London and at different times represented the Whig party as a dissenting Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Castle Rising
Castle Rising (UK Parliament constituency)
Castle Rising was a parliamentary borough in Norfolk, which elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1558 until 1832, when it was abolished by the Great Reform Act...
from 1806 to 1812, Portarlington
Portarlington (UK Parliament constituency)
Portarlington was a rotten borough and is a former United Kingdom Parliament constituency, in Ireland, returning one MP. It was an original constituency represented in Parliament when the Union of Great Britain and Ireland took effect on 1 January 1801....
from 1816 to 1819 and Ilchester
Ilchester (UK Parliament constituency)
Ilchester was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832. It was represented by two Members of Parliament until 1832...
from 1826 to 1827. In the House of Commons he often sat next to his friend, Samuel Whitbread, and supported his move for popular education.
End of life
Sharp once considered writing a history of American Independence and wrote to his friends, John AdamsJohn Adams
John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
and John Quincey Adams about this and other matters. He also considered writing a tourist’s guide to Europe after becoming so familiar with continental travel that he was once called 'the Thomas Cook
Thomas Cook
Thomas Cook of Melbourne, Derbyshire, England founded the travel agency that is now Thomas Cook Group.- Early days :...
of his day’. In the event his only publication was a slim volume of 'Letters and Essays in Prose and Verse' published shortly before his death.
Towards the end of his life Sharp liked to spend the winter months at his house in Torquay (Higher Terrace) where he was able to look out to sea and no doubt think fondly of his birthplace in Newfoundland. He had suffered all his life with a cough and a bad chest and Torquay was noted for both its health-giving air and Italianate landscape, but in 1834 the winter was particularly severe and as Sharp succumbed he resolved that he would die in his beloved London. He set off for the city with his family and servants but only got as far as Dorchester before expiring at the coaching inn there. Fearful that a nephew might obtain and subvert his Will, we are told that 70-year-old George Philips, in a final act of kindness, set off on his horse Canon and rode through the night as fast as he could to ensure that this did not occur!
Richard 'Conversation' Sharp never married but in about 1812 he adopted an infant, Maria Kinnaird
Maria Kinnaird
Maria Kinnaird was born on St. Vincent, but was orphaned by a volcanic eruption and she was adopted by the politician, Conversation Sharp. She was the heiress of her adopted father and she has been described as a accomplished, attractive, and intelligent woman...
, who had been orphaned by a catastrophic volcano eruption in the West Indies. Maria, as a teenager, knew 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....
's daughter, Dora
Dora Wordsworth
Dora Wordsworth was the only surviving daughter of William Wordsworth , major Romantic poet and British Poet Laureate. Her babyhood inspired Wordsworth to write the beautiful "Address To My Infant Daughter" in her honour...
, very well and in later life she led an interesting and colourful life in London Society . Macaulay and Romilly (son of Samuel Romilly
Samuel Romilly
Sir Samuel Romilly , was a British legal reformer.-Background and education:Romilly was born in Frith Street, Soho, London, the second son of Peter Romilly, a watchmaker and jeweller...
, were among many eligible young men who were said to be enamoured of Maria but in 1835 she married Thomas Drummond
Thomas Drummond
Captain Thomas Drummond , from Edinburgh, Scotland, was an army officer, civil engineer and senior public official. Drummond used the Drummond light which was employed in the trigonometrical survey of Great Britain and Ireland. He is sometimes mistakenly given credit for the invention of limelight,...
, who later became Undersecretary for Ireland.
London Institution
Richard Sharp’s exceptional shrewdness and eloquence were frequently aimed at bringing about some tangible outcome or change, and nowhere was this more the case than with regard to the formation of the London InstitutionLondon Institution
The London Institution was an educational institution founded in London in 1806...
. One commentator is in no doubt that this man's particular role was pivotal in the establishment of this important Institution when he wrote that it was…
As a pioneer and champion of adult education, Sharp’s initiative predates that of his better known contemporary, George Birkbeck
George Birkbeck
George Birkbeck was a British doctor, academic, philanthropist, pioneer in adult education and founder of Birkbeck College.-Biography:...
, whose Mechanics' Institutes
Mechanics' Institutes
Historically, Mechanics' Institutes were educational establishments formed to provide adult education, particularly in technical subjects, to working men...
only developed in Glasgow, London and elsewhere from the 1820s onwards. Like Sharp, Birkbeck was from a dissenter background and both were committed to making education more democratically available. Indeed, history would show that many of the founders of the London Institution would be those who joined with Thomas Campbell and Henry Brougham to found a new University for London incorporating Birkbeck's Mechanics'
Institute as Birkbeck College
Birkbeck, University of London
Birkbeck, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It offers many Master's and Bachelor's degree programmes that can be studied either part-time or full-time, though nearly all teaching is...
.
At the very beginning of its life, Richard Sharp was a member of the Institution’s Temporary Management Committee and he remained a Manager for most of his life. In 1810 he served as their Chairman, resigning from this position on 10 September 1812, and for the years 1827 and 1831 he was Vice-President. Throughout his long period of office he was brought into contact with many leading artists, thinkers and men of science, and as his interest in education grew he supported Whitbread’s move for a proper system of state education as well as Henry Brougham’s drive for a fully-fledged city University.
Published works
In 1828 Sharp's only book Letters & Essays in Prose and Verse was published (Murray) which the Quarterly Review declared to be remarkable for "wisdom, wit, knowledge of the world and sound criticism." Several editions, including an American copy, were published and it is now available on-line via GoogleBooksRichard Sharp is a sadly forgotten personality of his age and his biography has surely been a glaring omission from any history of the period. This has recently been corrected by a scholarly volume, privately published as Conversation Sharp - The Biography of a London Gentleman, Richard Sharp (1759–1835), in Letters, Prose and Verse (2004), of which a copy is in many leading British Libraries. A single, contemporary image of Sharp is known to exist, an excellent master drawing which is held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.