Hake, Thomas Gordon

(1809-1895)

   Hake was born at Leeds, though the family lived in Devonshire. His mother, widowed when he was young, secured him a place at Christ's Hospital School, London. He graduated in medicine from Glasgow University and practiced in many different parts of the country, then settled at Roehampton, where he was physician to the West London Hospital and to the Countess of Ripon - to whom his mother was related-at Nocton Hall, Lincolnshire (the Hall was destroyed by fire on 24 October 2004). He became a close friend with Dante Rossetti (see entry) and helped him through the dark days of mental turmoil. His autobiography, Memoirs of Eighty Years, was published in 1892. He retired from medicine to concentrate on poetry and died at his home near St. John's Wood, London. Some of his publications: Madeline: With Other Poems and Parables, 1871. The New Day, 1890. Parables and Tales, 1872. Poetic Lucubrations, 1828. Queen Victoria's Day, 1892. Some of his poems: "The Blind Boy," "The Cripple," "The Golden Wedding," "The Infant Medusa," "The Sybil," "The Wedding Ring," "Venus Urania," "When I Think of Thee, Brother."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Great Books Online (www.bartleby.com). SETIS: The Scholarly Electronic Text and Image Service, English Poetry Collection (http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/poetry/browse/hepdtoc.html). Sonnets of the Century (http://www.sonnets.org/bibliogr.htm\#sharp1). 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 Poems of Thomas Gordon Hake. Alice Meynell, ed. AMS Press, 1971.