National Writing Day

Today we celebrate a local poet and dramatist, Thomas Wade.

Wade, who was known as Wade Lavendar, was born in Woodbridge in 1805. At a young age after going to London, he published verse influenced by greats such as Byron, Keats, and Shelley. Some of his most notable works include Woman’s Love (1828), Tasso and the Sisters (1825), and Prothanasia and other Poems (1839). He also wrote a drama called King Henry II and a translation of Dante’s Inferno, although both were unpublished, as well as a series of sonnets inspired by his wife.

Wade contributed verse to magazines and was an editor as well as part-proprietor of Bell’s Weekly Messenger. This soon proved to be unsuccessful, in the financial sense. After he retired and moved to Jersey, he continued to publish poetry until 1871 as well as editing the British Press. He died on the 19th of September 1875.