Richard Harris Barham Biography Quotes 4 Report mistakes

Early Life
Richard Harris Barham was born in 1788 at Canterbury in Kent, a city whose cathedral, traditions, and antiquarian curiosities left a lasting mark on his imagination. His family connections in east Kent, and the long association of the name Ingoldsby with the old house at Tappington, supplied the scenery and the store of legends that he would later turn into literature. A serious accident in childhood curtailed active pursuits and drove him toward books; he read voraciously, especially chronicles, ballads, and local lore. The mixture of ecclesiastical history, Kentish superstition, and a sharply observant sense of humor began to shape a voice that would make him one of the most distinctive comic writers of his generation.

Clerical Vocation
Barham chose the Church of England for his profession, studied for holy orders, and was ordained. He spent his adult life combining the steady routine of a conscientious clergyman with the nimble mind of a satirist. He became a minor canon of St Pauls Cathedral, a post that anchored him in the heart of London and gave him daily intimacy with liturgy, music, and the rhythms of ecclesiastical life. He discharged his duties with seriousness but never piety of the dulled kind; colleagues remembered a man capable of genial conversation and quick sympathy. The cathedral gave him both a livelihood and a vantage point over the bustling metropolis whose magazines and newspapers were hungry for bright copy.

Journalism and Persona
To supplement his income, Barham turned to periodical writing. He found a ready outlet in the convivial, sometimes combative world of London journalism. Under the encouragement of Theodore Hook, he contributed to the newspaper John Bull, supplying squibs, satirical verses, and occasional articles that displayed the light touch and neat construction that would become his hallmark. Out of his Kentish memories and antiquarian reading he fashioned the playful persona that would make his name: Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, a genial antiquary who told ghost stories, mock-miracles, and moral fables with a wink. The pseudonym gave him a narrative frame and the freedom to mix scholarship, parody, and tall tale.

The Ingoldsby Legends
Beginning in the 1830s, the Ingoldsby pieces appeared in magazines, notably in Bentleys Miscellany at the invitation of Charles Dickens, and later under the editorship of William Harrison Ainsworth. Publisher Richard Bentley recognized the popular appeal of the work, in which Barham blended verse and prose, pastiche and parody, and footnotes of mock erudition into a style at once learned and laugh-out-loud funny. The Jackdaw of Rheims became an instant favorite, with its chanting rhythms, cumulative gags, and kindly satire of clerical pomp. Other widely enjoyed pieces drew on English and Continental folklore, such as The Hand of Glory and The Spectre of Tappington, transforming old superstitions into sparkling entertainment without malice. Illustrators of distinction, including George Cruikshank and John Leech, brought the tales to visual life, and collected editions swiftly followed. The popularity of the first volumes ensured that more would be gathered; after Barhams death, further Legends were issued, preserving material he had left in manuscript and proof.

Circle and Influences
Barham moved easily in the sociable literary world that clustered around publishers and periodicals. He enjoyed the friendship of Dickens, whose energy and editorial judgment helped the Legends reach a broad public. He was read and admired by fellow humorists such as Thomas Hood, who valued his mastery of stanza and his humane fun, and he worked in collegial fashion with editors like Ainsworth and Bentley, who could rely on him for pieces that combined polish with popular appeal. He also kept close ties to the cathedral community, where colleagues respected him as a kindly, practical clergyman. The two spheres nourished each other: sermons and daily offices kept his ear tuned to cadence and ritual; London talk and magazine deadlines sharpened his timing and his wit.

Method and Style
Barhams comic art was distinctive. He borrowed the scaffolding of antiquarian scholarship but turned it inside out, inventing mock authorities and learned notes to set off a punchline. He had a gift for catching dialects, for planting refrains that delighted readers aloud, and for balancing gentle satire with genuine narrative suspense. The Church, the law courts, medieval chronicles, and the byways of Kent supplied his settings; strong rhythms and exact rhymes gave his lyrics their memorable swing. He avoided cruelty, preferring to make pretension ridiculous rather than people miserable. This combination of verbal finesse, theatrical timing on the page, and moral temperateness made his humor welcome in parlors and schoolrooms alike.

Family and Personal Life
Behind the public persona of Thomas Ingoldsby stood a domestic life ordered by parish responsibilities and the routine of the cathedral precincts. Barham married and had children; the household, situated within easy reach of St Pauls, made room for proof sheets, visitors from the press, and the quiet of preparation for services. His son, Richard Harris Dalton Barham, later became the custodian of his fathers papers, preparing selections and an account of his life that helped frame his posthumous reputation. Friends in letters and the Church alike remembered him as affectionate, loyal, and unpretentious, with a fund of anecdote and an unfailing ear for the comic turn.

Final Years and Legacy
Ill health shadowed his later years, but he continued to write as strength permitted, maintaining the buoyant tone that had endeared him to readers. He died in 1845. By then his reputation had crystallized: a clergyman whose vocation and literary gift enriched rather than contradicted each other, and a humorist whose comic verse had entered the common stock of Victorian recitation. The Ingoldsby Legends went through many editions, their popularity sustained by family reading, school selections, and the illustrations of Cruikshank and Leech. Their influence can be traced in later Victorian comic writing and light verse, where Barhams mixture of narrative drive, mock scholarship, and rhythmic verve proved durable. For generations he remained a byword for genial fun that left no sting, and his best-known pieces, The Jackdaw of Rheims above all, kept alive the voice of the clerical wit from Canterbury who signed himself Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor.

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