Knight of Neath in 1860, he and Lucy moved to rural Teddington, built "Gomer House" named after his beloved dog and planted an orchard. The Classics Master taught Latin and Greek at Wellesley House grammar school for a time, before, owing to an inheritance left him by his uncle the Rev.
They would not have their own children but did adopt Eva, a niece of Lucy's. Lucy would later become a member of the Church of England. Blackmore married Lucy Maguire (1822?–1888), daughter of a laundress and a Roman Catholic, on 8 November 1853 at Holy Trinity Church, London. He became a Barrister of the Middle Temple in 1852 but never practiced due to his epilepsy. The grammar school gave him a solid background for his career as a man of letters and he won a scholarship for Exeter College, Oxford, earning a degree in the Classics in 1847. In the harsh and narrow circumstances he experienced the severe discipline and corporal punishment that some say later led to his epilepsy, though Blackmore does not make Blundell's out to be so monstrous in Lorna Doone. One of the boys he lodged with would later become archbishop of Canterbury. He started his education at Squire’s Grammar School in South Molton, Devon, then went on to the same school his father had attended, Blundell's School, during which he lived in the village for the week and would go home on Sundays.
By 1832 he was living with his father again after he had married his second wife, Charlotte Ann Platt in 1831. They lived on the rugged and remote North Shore of the Bristol Channel near Glamorgan though young Richard travelled south often to visit his father and paternal grandfather in Devon.
His mother, Anne Basset Knight (1794–1825) died of typhus when Richard was a mere three months old and so he was raised by his aunt Mary Francis Knight.
Richard Doddridge Blackmore was born 7 June 1825 at the vicarage in Longworth, Berkshire County, England, son of the Reverend John Blackmore (1794–1858).
0 kommentar(er)
