Thomas Medwin
| Thomas Medwin | |
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| Born | Thomas Medwin 20 March 1788 Horsham, West Sussex, England |
| Died | 2 August 1869 (aged 81) Horsham, West Sussex, England |
| Resting place | St. Mary's Churchyard, Horsham |
| Occupation | Poet, biographer, novelist, translator |
| Nationality | English |
| Education | Syon House |
| Literary movement | Romanticism |
| Notable works | Journal of the conversations of Lord Byron (1824), The Agamemnon of Aeschylus, translated into English verse 1832, The life of P. B. Shelley 2 vols. (1847) |
Thomas Medwin (1788–1869) was an early 19th-century English poet and translator known chiefly for his biography of his cousin Percy Bysshe Shelley and for recollections of his close friend Lord Byron.
Thomas Medwin was born in the market town of Horsham, West Sussex on 20 March 1788, the third son of five children of Thomas Charles Medwin, a solicitor and steward, and Mary Medwin (née Pilford). He was a second cousin on both his parents' sides to Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), who lived two miles away at Field Place, Warnham, and with whom Medwin formed a friendship from childhood onwards.
Medwin's was a prosperous rather than a wealthy family that expected their sons to work for a living. He attended Syon House Academy in Isleworth in 1788–1804, as did Shelley in 1802–8. Medwin related that Shelley and he remained close friends at Syon House, forming a bond so close that Shelley apparently sleepwalked his way to Medwin's dormitory. After a further year in a public school, Medwin matriculated at University College, Oxford in the winter of 1805, but left without taking his degree. He was initially articled as a clerk in his father's law firm in Horsham.
Medwin showed considerable aptitude in foreign languages and was to become fluent in Greek, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese. He began writing poems, including a contribution to The Wandering Jew, a poem attributed to Shelley. The young Shelley and Medwin met during their respective holidays for pursuits such as fishing and fox-hunting. Their romantic attachments included their cousin Harriet Grove, with whom Shelley was deeply committed by the spring of 1810, although he was to elope with Harriet Westbrook in 1811.
Medwin rebelled against his father's wish that he become a lawyer, causing a quarrel, leading to a quarrel that meant he was almost entirely omitted from his father's will, executed in 1829. There was a period of drift in Medwin's life, in which he attempted to live beyond his means as a gentleman. Considerable debts appear to have been paid by his family. These activities involved much carousing and gambling at his club in Brighton and generally spending money on collecting art. Shelley recalled Medwin as painting well and "remarkable, if I do not mistake, for a particular taste in, and knowledge of the belli arti – Italy is the place for you, the very place – the Paradise of Exiles... If you will be glad to see an old friend, who will be glad to see you... come to Italy." Medwin's financial situation could not continue as it was, and by 1812 he had decided take a military commission in the 24th Light Dragoons, where he had social pretensions.
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