Ireland, S. W. H. (Samuel William Henry), 1777-1835
Persius, Paul, 1777-1835
Ireland, William Henry, 1777-1835
Notes:
His The abbess, 1834 t.p. (W.H. Ireland)
His All the blocks, 1808 t.p. (Flagellum)
His Chalcographimania, 1814 t.p. (Satiricus Sculptor)
His The fisher boy, 1809 t.p. (H.C., esq.)
His Rizzio, 1849 t.p. (the late Mr. Ireland)
His Scribbleomania, 1815 t.p. (Anser Pen-drag-on, esq.)
Brit. Mus. cat. (Ireland, Samuel William Henry)
His Vortigern, 1832 t.p., p. xiii (W.H. Ireland)
Dict. of natl. biogr. (under Ireland, Samuel; forger who attributed several of his own writings to Shakespeare including his blank-verse play "Vortigern and Rowena"; supported by deceived father nearly up to the latter's death; exposed as a fraud in May 1796; son of Samuel Ireland, probably illegitimate; mother may have been a Mrs. Freeman (father's housekeeper) or a Mrs. Irwin (separated from her husband, living with Samuel Ireland); William possibly baptized as William Henry Irwin; signed Dec. 13, 1796 letter to father as "W. H. Freeman"; father called him "Sam" after a deceased son; William sometimes signed himself as "Samuel Ireland, junior" and "S.W.H. Ireland")
A ballade, wrotton on the feastynge and merrimentes of Easter Maunday, 1802 t.p. (Paul Persius, a learnedd clerke and monke of the Broderhoode of the Blacke Fryers, London); note: a forgery by W.H. Ireland
ODNB 2 Sept. 2009 (Ireland, William Henry (1775--1835), literary forger and writer, was born on 2 August 1775 in London, the only surviving son of Samuel Ireland (d. 1800), engraver and author, and Anna Maria de Burgh Coppinger, otherwise Mrs Freeman (d. 1802), who passed as the father's housekeeper but was known to be his mistress and mother of his children, died at Sussex Place, St George's-in-the-Fields, London, on 17 April 1835