Poems On Various Subjects

Among the notes on one of my various defunct laptops was this reference to Peter d'Egville. He appears among the list of subscribers to Poems on Various Subjects by John Taylor Esq. This work was published in two volumes in London in 1827. I haven't been able to move beyond the first poem - but Byron did write to the author on at least one occasion. I can't imagine how I could listen to a reading without gnawing through my own limbs.

Being so late it is difficult to believe that it was Peter d'Agueville/d'Aigueville because at the very least he would be almost ninety years old. However, some people did manage to live to a ripe old age. Having found the reference I will have to go back to the tree in case he's among the fruit. All suggestions and identifications are welcome. There are many references and dedications among the poems to Peter d'Agueville's contemporaries.

It does tell us two things: he had sufficient disposable income to subscribe to the work and he lives at a reasonably good address. There are modern buildings in Percy Street but some of the architecture from Peter's time has survived.



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d'Egvilles of Ipswich

In Tales, Poems and Masonic Papers by Emra Holmes (1877) [1], a commentary on the minutes of the British Union Lodge, Ipswich, records that Peter Dagueville was proposed for initiation on 4 March 1783. The spelling is similar to that used when Peter dAgville signed his name. 

Peter's membership of the British Union Lodge might have only lasted a short time as Holmes says that he has disappeared from the list of members for 1786-87.

In March 1791 Peter announced that he would be leaving Ipswich through an auction advertisement in the Ipswich Journal. Hatton Court still exists, off Tavern Street, leading towards the Churchyard of Saint Mary-le-Tower.

Ipswich Journal 26 March 1791
The British Library Board

However, Peter might not have left Ipswich or if he did so he might have left his progeny behind. In 1809 the marriage of Miss d'Egville of Ipswich to Ensign Deighton of the West Norfolk Militia was announced in the Bury and Norwich Post. Peter is likely to have been too old to be the Peter d'Egville charged with riotous conduct in 1843.

Bury and Norwich Post 26 April 1809
The British Library Board

Interestingly Sophia Hervey d'Egville (Madame Michau) disappears from the English scene in about 1795 to reappear in Paris. We know that there was at least on other d'Egville there in the first decades of the nineteenth century.  


[1] Tales, Poems and Masonic Papers by Emra Holmes (1877)Masonic Papers, Notes on the old minute books of the British Union Lodge, No. 114, Ipswich. A.D., 1762.