Welsted, Leonard

(1688-1747)

   Born at Abington, Northamptonshire, where his father was a clergyman, he was educated at Westminster School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, but left Cambridge without graduating to marry a daughter of Henry Purcell the musician (she died in 1724), and took a post in the office one of the secretaries of state. His second wife, Anna Maria, a remarkable beauty, was sister to Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker (who settled on a plantation in South Carolina). Welsted then worked as a government clerk and in 1731 was made one of the commissioners for managing the state lottery. He died at his official residence in the Tower of London. Welsted's first poem, "Apple-Pye," often wrongly attributed to William King (see entry), was written in 1704. Some of his publications: The Duke of Marlborough's Arrival, 1709. An Ode on the Birth-Day of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, 1716. An Ode to the Honourable Major-General Wade, 1726. A Hymn to the Creator, 1727. The Works, 1787. Some of his other poems: "Amintor and the Nightingale," "Of False Fame," "The Faultless Fair," "The Genius; an Ode," "To Zelinda."

   Sources: An Anthology of Eighteenth-century Satire: Grub Street. Peter Heaney, ed. Edwin Mellen Press, 1995. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition, 1.1. English Poetry: Author Search (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Vietual American Biogrphies: Sir Hovenden Walker (http://www.famousamericans.net/sirhovendenwalker/). Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (http://library.stanford.edu). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Verse. Roger Lonsdale, ed. Oxford University Press, 1984. The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse. Alastair Fowler, ed. Oxford University Press, 1991.