William Makepeace Thackeray, the only child of Richmond and Anne Thackeray, was born at Calcutta on July 18th, 1811. He was descended from Yorkshire yeomen who for several generations had been settled at Hampsthwaite, in the West Riding. In 1766 his grandfather, likewise named William Makepeace Thackeray, sailed for India at the age of seventeen, to enter the service of the East India Company. Under Cartier, the predecessor of Warren Hastings as Governor of Bengal, his promotion was very rapid. In 1776 he married Amelia Richmond, and the same year returned to England. His fourth son, Richmond Thackeray, father of the novelist, went to India in 1798 also in the service of the Company. In 1807 he became Secretary to the Board of Revenue at Calcutta, and undoubtedly possessed brilliant gifts for administration and public work. He married on October 13th, 1810, the reigning beauty of Calcutta, Anne, daughter of John Harman Becher. The painting by Chinnery, executed in 1814, gives a glimpse of the Thackerays at the time when their son had reached the age of three years. He is drawn perched on a large pile of books, with his arms round his mother’s neck, his father stiffly seated in a chair close by.

Richmond Thackeray was at this time Collector of the district called the Twenty-four Pergunnahs. Two years later he died, and in 1817 his son was sent to England to be educated, and was placed in the charge of his aunt Mrs. Ritchie, who first sent him to a school in Hampshire, and then to the establishment of Dr. Turner at Chiswick. About 1818 Mrs. Richmond Thackeray married a second time, and in 1821 returned to England with her husband, Major Carmichael Smyth, and settled at Addiscombe. The following year Thackeray was sent to the Charterhouse, where he remained until 1828. This famous school figured largely in his writings as “Greyfriars.” It was here that Colonel Newcome and Clive, Pendennis, George Osborne, Philip Firmin, and Rawdon Crawley were educated. Charterhouse was the scene of Thackeray’s fight with Venables, in which he sustained the unfortunate accident to his nose that caused a permanent disfigurement in his otherwise handsome countenance. Evidence of this is noticeable in the plaster cast executed by J. Devile, which represents Thackeray at the age of eleven.

In 1825 Thackeray’s mother removed to Larkbeare, a house situated a mile and a half from Ottery St. Mary, where her son used to spend his holidays. On leaving school he remained at Larkbeare until he took up his residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, in February 1829. The scenery surrounding his mother’s home is described in “Pendennis,” Ottery St. Mary, Exeter, and Sidmouth figuring respectively as Clavering St. Mary, Chatteris, and Baymouth.

While at Cambridge Thackeray contributed to a small paper called The Snob, a literary and scientific journal not conducted by members of the University. In it appeared “Timbuctoo,” a mock poem on the subject chosen for the Chancellor’s medal, won that year by Alfred Tennyson. In 1829 Thackeray spent the long vacation in Paris, and left college after the following Easter term.

Having inherited a fortune from his father, it was arranged that he should finish his education by travelling abroad for a couple of years. Accordingly he spent several months at Dresden, Rome, Paris, and Weimar, and finally resolved to study for the Bar on his return to England. In 1831 he entered the Middle Temple, and by November of that year was settled in chambers in Hare Court. On coming of age, however, he abandoned all pretence of following the profession he had chosen, and made his way to Paris, whence he wrote letters for The National Standard, and collected material for miscellaneous articles. Having speedily lost the greater part of his fortune, he turned his thoughts seriously to painting as a means of livelihood, and at this period frequented various studios, probably working in the atelier of Gros. Later he copied pictures assiduously at the Louvre, but though he delighted in the art he failed to acquire any great technical skill as a draughtsman.

In January 1835 Thackeray appeared as one of the Fraserians in a sketch drawn by Maclise and published in Fraser’s Magazine. This celebrated cartoon depicts the Fraser writers at one of the frequent banquets held at 212, Regent Street. It was in this company that Thackeray first gained distinction as an author.

In 1836 he was appointed Paris correspondent of The Constitutional, and in August of the same year he married Miss Shawe. The wedding took place at the British Embassy, Bishop Luscombe, at that time chaplain, officiating at the ceremony. The newly married couple lived in apartments in the Rue Neuve St. Augustin, a street quite close by the Rue Neuve des Petits Champs, where is situated the restaurant made famous in the “Ballad of Bouillabaisse.”

The Constitutional came to an end in 1837, and Thackeray returned to London and took up his abode for a time at 18, Albion Street, Hyde Park, where his mother was then living, and where he had stayed in 1834 when first contributing to Fraser’s Magazine. Anne Isabella Thackeray, his eldest daughter, was born at this house. A removal was made not long afterwards to No. 13, Great Coram Street, Brunswick Square, where the Thackerays lived for some years. During this period “The Paris Sketch-Book” was written, being published in 1840 by Macrone. Owing to the misfortune of his wife’s illness the author’s household became unsettled, and about 1843 the home at Great Coram Street was given up.

Thackeray had published in 1841 a collection of “Comic Tales and Sketches, edited and illustrated by Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh,” with a preface dated “Paris, April 1st, 1841,” from which the following is an extract:

During the same year “The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond” commenced to run its course in Fraser’s Magazine. Punch had been started on July 17th, and Thackeray’s first contributions appeared the following June. In the course of his ten years’ connection with this periodical he contributed something like 500 sketches irrespective of letterpress. One of these, reproduced on page 12, is taken from a series entitled “Authors’ Miseries,” and represents Jerrold and the artist himself in a railway carriage listening to the other occupants discussing the members of the Punch staff:—

In the latter half of 1842 Thackeray made a tour in Ireland, and recorded his experiences in “The Irish Sketch-Book,” which made its appearance the following year.

Thackeray, who for some time had been a member of the Garrick Club, was elected to the Reform in 1840, being proposed by Mr. Martin Thackeray and seconded by Mr. Henry Webbe. Sir Wemyss Reid gives an interesting description of the author at this Club. “Again and again I have heard descriptions of how he used to stand in the smoking-room, his back to the fire, his legs rather wide apart, his hands thrust into the trouser-pockets, and his head stiffly thrown backward, while he joined in the talk of the men occupying the semi-circle of chairs in front of him.... To some of us, at least, the Club is endeared by the thought that he was once one of ourselves; that he sat in these chairs, dined at these tables, chatted in these rooms, and, with his wise, far-seeing eyes surveyed the world from these same windows.” In the strangers’ room at the Reform Club hangs a portrait of Thackeray by Samuel Laurence. On one side of it there stands a bust of Sir William Molesworth, on the other of Charles Buller. The latter seconded Thackeray when he was proposed by the Rev. W. Harness as a member of the AthenÆum on February 12th, 1846. Thackeray was elected to this Club in 1851 under the rule which provides for the introduction of “persons of distinguished eminence in science, literature, or public services.”

In 1846 Thackeray took a house at 13 (now 16), Young Street, Kensington, where he established a home for his daughters. “Vanity Fair,” “Pendennis,” and “Esmond” were written there. “Vanity Fair” made its appearance in yellow covers, being brought out in monthly parts by Messrs. Bradbury & Evans. The first number was issued in January 1847, the last in July 1848.

When passing his house in Young Street with Mr. J. T. Fields, the American publisher, Thackeray exclaimed, “Go down on your knees, you rogue, for here ‘Vanity Fair’ was penned, and I will go down with you, for I have a high opinion of that little production myself.”

The first number of “Pendennis” appeared in November 1848, but the author’s severe illness at the end of 1849 interrupted its publication, which was not concluded until 1850. “Pendennis” was followed by “Esmond” in 1852. Whilst residing in Young Street Thackeray delivered his famous lectures on the English humorists at Willis’s Rooms. On page 21 an admirable caricature by John Leech is reproduced from The Month representing Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh as he appeared in these rooms in his celebrated character of Mr. Thackeray:

On October 30th, 1852, Thackeray set sail for the United States, where he remained until the spring of 1853. He lectured in various towns—New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and Richmond amongst others. Upon his return to Europe he made a very short stay in London, and then proceeded to Switzerland, where the story of “The Newcomes” was, according to his own statement, “revealed to him somehow.” Much of the novel was written abroad while its author was travelling in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, or staying at the ChÂteau de Brequerecque at Boulogne, where he is said to have evolved the noble figure of Colonel Newcome. The ChÂteau de Brequerecque lies pleasantly nestled in trees and shrubberies on the outskirts of the town, and is surrounded by a high wall screening it from public gaze. “The Newcomes” was completed at No. 36, Onslow Square, where Thackeray moved from Young Street in 1857. “The result of my father’s furnishings,” wrote Mrs. Richmond Ritchie of this residence, “was a pleasant, bowery sort of home, with green curtains and carpets, looking out upon the elm trees of Onslow Square. We lived for seven years at No. 36, and it was there he wrote the ‘Lectures on the George’s, and the end of ‘The Newcomes,’ and ‘The Virginians,’ part of ‘Philip,’ and many of the ‘Roundabout Papers.’ His study was over the drawing-room, and looked out upon the elm trees.”

Thackeray stood for Parliament in the Oxford City division in July of 1857, but was defeated by a small majority. In 1860 he undertook the editorship of the Cornhill Magazine, of which Messrs. Smith & Elder had commenced publication in the January of that year. Though continuing to contribute to this magazine until the last, he retired from the editorship in April 1862, doubtless finding the work too exacting for his now failing health.

In the year 1861 the firm of Jackson & Graham built for Thackeray the beautiful house at No. 2, Palace Green, Kensington, which alone of all his homes has the Society of Arts oval commemorative tablet inserted in its wall. An old house stood on the site at the time of purchase, but after careful consideration Thackeray wisely gave up the idea of repairing and adding to it, and erected in its place a fine mansion of red brick with stone facings in the style of Queen Anne. At this period, besides working for the Cornhill, Thackeray was writing “Denis Duval,” his last book, which remained unfinished. After several severe attacks of illness, the novelist died at his residence in Palace Green on December 23rd, 1863, and was interred at Kensal Green Cemetery on the 30th of the month. The Middle Temple, of which he was a member, requested that they might be allowed to bury him in the Temple, near the grave of Goldsmith. The offer was, however, declined. A bust of Thackeray by his friend, Baron Marochetti, was placed in Westminster Abbey.