Bartholomew Eliot George Warburton (1810–1852), usually known as Eliot Warburton, was an Irish traveller and novelist, born near
Tullamore
Tullamore (; ) is the county town of County Offaly in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is on the Grand Canal (Ireland), Grand Canal, in the middle of the county, and is the fourth most populous town in the Midland Region, Ireland, midlands reg ...
, Ireland.
Biography
![Syriantravel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Syriantravel.jpg)
His father was Major George Warburton, Inspector General of the
Royal Irish Constabulary
The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC, ga, Constáblacht Ríoga na hÉireann; simply called the Irish Constabulary 1836–67) was the police force in Ireland from 1822 until 1922, when all of the country was part of the United Kingdom. A separate ...
for
Aughrim, County Galway
Aughrim () is a small village in County Galway, Ireland. It is located between the towns of Loughrea and Ballinasloe, along the old N6 national primary road (now listed as the R446 regional road) that used to be the main road between Galway and ...
. His mother was Anne Maria Acton of Kilmacurragh,
County Wicklow
County Wicklow ( ; ga, Contae Chill Mhantáin ) is a county in Ireland. The last of the traditional 32 counties, having been formed as late as 1606, it is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the province of Leinster. It is bordered by t ...
. He was educated at
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...
,
and was called to the Irish Bar in 1837. He contracted lasting friendships with
Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) and
AW Kinglake, author of ''Eothen'', which he admired. He decided to give up his practice as a
barrister
A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...
for travel and literature.
His first travel articles were published in the ''
Dublin University Magazine
The ''Dublin University Magazine'' was an independent literary cultural and political magazine published in Dublin from 1833 to 1882. It started out as a magazine of political commentary but increasingly became devoted to literature. The magazine ...
'', where the editor,
Charles Lever
Charles James Lever (31 August 1806 – 1 June 1872) was an Irish novelist and raconteur, whose novels, according to Anthony Trollope, were just like his conversation.
Biography Early life
Lever was born in Amiens Street, Dublin, the second s ...
persuaded him to make them into a book. This became his first book, ''The Crescent and the Cross'', an account of his travels in 1843 in Greece, Turkey,
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
, Palestine and Egypt, and which fairly divided public attention with
Kinglake's ''Eothen'', which appeared in the same year, 1844. Interest in England was centred in the East at the time, and Warburton had popular sympathy with Kinglake in his advocacy of the annexation of Egypt. But, apart from this consideration, the spirited narrative of Warburton's adventures and the picturesque sketches of Eastern life and character were more than sufficient to justify the success of the book.
It was a huge success and went into 18 editions.
In 1847 Warburton wrote ''Zoë: an episode of the Greek War'', derived from a story he had heard while visiting the Greek islands. He donated the proceeds of the book to
Irish famine
The Great Famine ( ga, an Gorta Mór ), also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a h ...
relief. His most substantial work was a ''Memoir of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers'' (1849), enriched with original documents, and written with eloquent partiality for the subject. This was followed in 1850 by ''Reginald Hastings'', a novel, the scenes of which were laid in the same period of civil war, and, in 1851, by another historical novel, ''Darien, or The Merchant Prince''.
He was also for a time the editor of
The Gentleman's Magazine
''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term ''magazine'' (from the French ''magazine'' ...
.
RIA
A ria (; gl, ría) is a coastal inlet formed by the partial submergence of an unglaciated river valley. It is a drowned river valley that remains open to the sea.
Definitions
Typically rias have a Drainage system (geomorphology)#Dendritic dr ...
, Dictionary of Irish Biography, 2008
He was planning to write a history of the poor, and on his last visit to
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
visited slums and poor areas of the city. However, in 1852 he was sent by the Atlantic and Pacific Junction Company to explore the isthmus of
Darién and to negotiate friendly relations between the company and the local Indian tribes.
He sailed on this mission aboard the steamship , and died along with about 110 other passengers and crew when the ''Amazon'' caught fire and sank on 4 January 1852 in the
Bay of Biscay
The Bay of Biscay (), known in Spain as the Gulf of Biscay ( es, Golfo de Vizcaya, eu, Bizkaiko Golkoa), and in France and some border regions as the Gulf of Gascony (french: Golfe de Gascogne, oc, Golf de Gasconha, br, Pleg-mor Gwaskogn), ...
.
[
]
Family
On 11 January 1848 he married Matilda Jane, second daughter of Edward Grove, of Shenstone Park, Staffordshire
Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...
. They had two sons, George and Piers.
His brother, Major George Drought Warburton
George Drought Warburton (1816–1857) was an Irish soldier, politician and writer on Canada.
Life
The third son of George Warburton of Aughrim, County Galway, and younger brother of Bartholomew Elliott George Warburton, known as Eliot, he was ...
(1816–1857, named after his uncle George Drought of Glencarrig, County Wicklow), collaborated with him on ''Hochelaga, or England in the New World'' (1847), and ''The Conquest of Canada'' (1849). Another brother, Thomas, studied law at Trinity College, Dublin
, name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin
, motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin)
, motto_lang = la
, motto_English = It will last i ...
, while a sister, Sidney, was also a writer.
Bibliography
Fiction
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Nonfiction
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* (with George Warburton)
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* (posthumous; with George Warburton)
References
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Warburton, Eliot
1810 births
1852 deaths
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Deaths due to ship fires
People who died at sea
Irish travel writers
19th-century travel writers
People from County Offaly
Irish male novelists
19th-century Irish novelists
19th-century male writers