Henry Fothergill Chorley

CHORLEY, Henry Fothergill. b. Blackley Hurst, near Billinge, Lancashire, 15 December 1808; d. London, 16 February 1872. He was the son of Quaker parents: his father was an iron-worker and lock-maker who died when he was a child, after which the family moved to Liverpool. Chorley was educated at the school of the Royal Institution there. After a frustrating time as a clerk in Liverpool, he began in 1830 to send articles to The Athenaeum, and in 1833 he moved to London to be a member of the staff. During his time at Liverpool he had been befriended by Felicia Hemans*, and one of Chorley’s first books was Memorials of Mrs Hemans (1836). He became a well known figure in the Victorian literary...