William Jerdan FSA (16 April 1782 – 11 July 1869), Scottish

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

, was born at

Kelso, Scotland Kelso ( sco, Kelsae gd, Cealsaidh) is a market town in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Roxburghshire, it lies where the rivers Tweed and Teviot have their confluence. The town has a po ...

. During the years between 1799 and 1806, he spent short periods in a country lawyer's office, a London West India merchant's

counting house A counting house, or counting room, was traditionally an office in which the financial books of a business were kept. It was also the place that the business received appointments and correspondence relating to demands for payment. As the use of ...

, an Edinburgh solicitor's chambers, and held the position of surgeon's mate on board H.M. guardship ''Gladiator'' in

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

Harbour, under his uncle, who was surgeon. He went to London in 1806 and became a newspaper reporter. He was in the lobby of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

on 11 May 1812, when

Spencer Perceval Spencer Perceval (1 November 1762 – 11 May 1812) was a British statesman and barrister who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1809 until his assassination in May 1812. Perceval is the only British prime minister to ...

was shot, and was the first to seize the assassin. By 1812, he had become editor of The Sun, a semi-official

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. Th ...

paper started by John Heriot in 1792; he was still there in 1815 and occasionally inserted literary articles, then quite an unusual proceeding; but a quarrel with the chief proprietor brought that engagement to a close in 1817. He passed next to the editor's chair of the ''

Literary Gazette ''The Literary Gazette'' was a British literary magazine, established in London in 1817 with its full title being ''The Literary Gazette, and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences''. Sometimes it appeared with the caption title, "London Lite ...

'', which he conducted with success for thirty-four years. Jerdan's position as editor brought him into contact with many distinguished writers. An account of his friends, among whom

Canning Canning is a method of food preservation in which food is processed and sealed in an airtight container (jars like Mason jars, and steel and tin cans). Canning provides a shelf life that typically ranges from one to five years, although u ...

was a special intimate, is to be found in his ''Men I have Known'' (1866); the men featured in the book include

William Buckland William Buckland Doctor of Divinity, DD, Royal Society, FRS (12 March 1784 – 14 August 1856) was an English theologian who became Dean of Westminster. He was also a geologist and paleontology, palaeontologist. Buckland wrote the first full ...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poe ...

Edward Forbes Edward Forbes FRS, FGS (12 February 1815 – 18 November 1854) was a Manx naturalist. In 1846, he proposed that the distributions of montane plants and animals had been compressed downslope, and some oceanic islands connected to the mainlan ...

, F.R.S. (with a colorful, eyewitness account of one of Forbes' early oceanographic dredging operations) and

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

. When Jerdan retired in 1850 from the editorship of the ''Literary Gazette'', his pecuniary affairs were far from satisfactory. A testimonial of over £900 was subscribed by his friends; and in 1853 a government pension of 100 guineas was conferred on him by

Lord Aberdeen George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, (28 January 178414 December 1860), styled Lord Haddo from 1791 to 1801, was a British statesman, diplomat and landowner, successively a Tory, Conservative and Peelite politician and specialist in ...

. He published his ''Autobiography'' in 4 volumes from 1852–1853. His grave in

Bushey Bushey is a town in the Hertsmere borough of Hertfordshire in the East of England. It has a population of over 25,000 inhabitants. Bushey Heath is a large neighbourhood south east of Bushey on the boundary with the London Borough of Harrow re ...

has a memorial sculpted by

Joseph Durham Joseph Durham (1814 – 27 October 1877) was an English sculptor. Life Durham was born in London in 1814. Around 1827 he was apprenticed o John Francis. He later worked in the studio of E. H. Baily for three years, and exhibited his ...

.Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851 by Rupert Gunnis

References

;Attribution *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jerdan, William 1782 births 1869 deaths Scottish journalists

Further reading

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