Edmund Lewis Lenthal Swifte or Swift (20 June 1777 – 28 December 1875) was a British lawyer, poet and writer who was for many years the custodian of the

British Crown Jewels The Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom, originally the Crown Jewels of England, are a collection of royal ceremonial objects kept in the Tower of London which include the coronation regalia and vestments worn by British monarchs. Symbols of ov ...

in the

Tower of London The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is separa ...

. He was born a younger son of Theophilus Swifte of

Goodrich, Herefordshire Goodrich is a village in south Herefordshire, England close to Gloucestershire and the Forest of Dean, situated near the River Wye at . It is known for its Norman and mediaeval castle built with Old Red Sandstone. The village of Goodrich gre ...

(a relative of

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...

) and studied 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 ...

. He was a member of the Lawyers' corps in Ireland (1796–1803) and was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

in Dublin in 1803. He was called to the bar in England in 1815. In 1814 he was appointed

Master of the Jewel Office The Master of the Jewel Office was a position in the Royal Households of England, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom. The office holder was responsible for running the Jewel House The Jewel House is a vault housing the British ...

in the Tower of London, a position he held until 1852. During his time there (in October, 1817) he claimed to have seen a ghostly apparition floating above his wife's head at dinner. He produced a number of poems, translations and essays. He died in Dover in 1875 at the age of 98. He had married several times and had many children.

Works

* ''Life and acts of St. Patrick'' by Jocelin - translation, 1809 * ''Anacreon in Dublin'' - poetry, 1814 * ''Waterloo and other poems''- 1815 * ''Juvenal's 10th and 13th Satires'' - translation, 1818. * ''The equality of the constitution'' - essay, 1819. * ''Woman's will — a riddle! An operatic drama'' - 1820. * ''One thousand eight hundred and twenty nine, or, shall it be so?'' -1829. * ''Homeric studies'' - 1840.

References

External links

Portrait of Edmund Lenthal Swifte

Waterloo-a poem by Edmund Swifte
{{DEFAULTSORT:Swifte, Edmund Lenthal 1777 births 1875 deaths People from Herefordshire Alumni of Trinity College Dublin British poets Masters of the Jewel Office