Richard Ford (writer)
Richard Ford (* April 21, 1796 in London, † August 31 1858 in Heavitree ( since 1913 the district of Exeter), Devon ) was an English traveler, writer and artist.
Life
Richard Ford was the eldest son of Sir Richard Ford, who was Member of Parliament in 1789 for East Grinstead and later for many years chief of police in London. He was since 1794 with Marianne Ford, nee Booth, married the daughter and heiress of Benjamin Booth, a well-known art collector.
Ford studied at Winchester and at Trinity College, Oxford and worked as a lawyer and as a journalist and cartoonist for several newspapers in London, including the Quarterly Review. In 1824 he married Harriet Capel ( 1806-1837 ), the only child of George Capell - Coningsby, 5th Earl of Essex ( 1757-1839 ). With her he had a son, Clare Ford (1828-1899), the English diplomat was later.
In 1830, Richard Ford pulled because of the precarious health of his wife, who needed a change of climate, to Spain. He took up his residence in Seville and Granada. From there he traveled the entire peninsula. In the fall of 1833 he returned to England and settled in Exeter to build a house in the Mudejar style, in which he grew an extensive library of books in Spanish. He dedicated himself to Spain and the customs of the country 's history. He also published numerous scientific articles.
In the spring of 1834 he separated from his wife and moved to Southernhay, now a district of Exeter, close to his brother, the priest James A. Ford ( 1797-1877 ). Later he bought a house in Heavitree, which he endowed with the valuable paintings and books, which he had acquired in Spain. He made friends there with the artist John Gendall. On February 24, 1838 he married Eliza Linnington Cranstoun ( 1808-1849 ), the eldest daughter of James Cranstoun Edmund, 9th Lord Cranstoun ( 1780-1818 ), and shortly thereafter began working on his major work, a handbook for Spain travelers, which was eventually published in 1845 by the publisher John Murray. As the historian Sir William Stirling - Maxwell was holding in his obituary of Ford, it deserves a permanent place among the best books on travel and history in English. 1846 appeared another book about Spain with a series of informative and entertaining essays. In 1851 he married Mary Molesworth ( 1816-1910 ), the sister of politician Sir William Molesworth of Pencarrow ( 1810-1855 ).
The last years were spent between Ford Exeter - where he was Vice President of Devonshire and Exeter Institution and later its president - and London.
Meeting with Beethoven
Ford undertook after his departure from Trinity College in the summer of 1817 an educational trip to Germany and Austria, where he arrived in Vienna on 12 October 1817. The highlight of his stay in the city was an encounter with Ludwig van Beethoven, whom he visited on 28 November 1817. Beethoven received Ford very friendly, gave him a portrait of himself and composed specifically for Ford a short Allegretto for String Quartet in B minor. The piece was completely unknown for a long time. Only on 8 December 1999 came the autograph at Sotheby 's in London surprisingly for auction and is now in the Bibliotheca Bodmeriana in Cologny.
Works
- A hand -book for travelers in Spain and readers at home, 2 volumes, London 1845
- Gathering of Spain, London 1846
- The Spaniards and Their country, 2 volumes, New York 1847