F W Garnham

Doug Greene and I have been batting some correspondence back and forth across the Atlantic in relation to W. Stephens Hayward and the Anonyma books. There are some questions about the publication of the books, so I thought I'd do a little digging.

One novel, Mabel Gray; or, Cast on the Tide was  published by F. W. Garnham. Garnham, it turns out, was Frederick William Garnham, a bookseller who was living in Henry Street, St Mary Newington, London, at the time of the 1871 census. He was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, in 1843, the son of William Garnham, a wine merchant and hotel keeper, and his wife Caroline (nee Sheldrake). He was christened in Ipswich on 27 April 1845, as were siblings, Charlotte Sheldrake Garnham (b.1842) and Alfred Henry Garnham (b. late 1844/early 1845).

He was working as a commercial traveller when he married 16-year-old Clara Fossey at St Philip, Clerkenwell, on 4 August 1861. Clara died in 1885, aged 41, and Garnham remarried the following year, on 19 October 1886 at St Pancras Church, to 29-year-old Elizabeth Lynam. At that time his occupation was described as "gentleman".

I've not traced Garnham beyond that second marriage.  Nor have I managed to find out how long Garnham was based at his bookseller's address of 44 Ludgate Hill, although Mabel Gray was published in 1869.

(Incidentally, a Google search for F. W. Garnham turns up a number of references to a book entitled Legends of the Rhine from Basle to Rotterdam but the book itself reveals that the O.C.R. (presumably) has made an error: the book is by F. J. Kiefer, translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A.)