Edward Gibbon was an Eighteenth Century historian best known for “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”
When and Where was Edward Gibbon Born?
8th May 1737, Lime Grove manor, Putney, London, England.
Edward Gibbon’s father, also called Edward was well off due to inheriting a fortune from his own father. He lived in society and parliament. His mother was Judith Porten.
Private tuition by John Kirkby a clergyman. Grammar school in Kingston-on-Thames run by Dr Wooddeson. Westminster School. Magdalen College, Oxford.
Chronology/Biography of Edward Gibbon:
1747: Death of his mother.
1750: Forced to leave Westminster School due to ill health and goes to Bath to take the waters.
1751: Health improves and he begins to become interested in history.
1752: Edward Gibbon enters Oxford University as a gentleman commoner where, by his own admission, he spends an idle life.
1753: Converts to Catholicism. He father sends him to Lausanne in Switzerland as a punishment and he is tutored by a Calvinist teacher Daniel Pavillard. He meets Jacques Georges Deyverdun who translated Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther” into French and John Baker Holroyd who later became Lord Sheffield.
1754: Converts back to Protestantism.
1755: His father marries again to Dorothea Patton. Spends his time reading mathematics and latin.
1757: Meets Voltaire who describes him as an English youth. Falls in love with Suzanne Curchod the daughter of the Pastor of Crassy and proposes to her. They become engaged.
1758: Edward Gibbon begins writing the “Essai sur L’Etude de la Litterature”. Breaks off with Curchod after resistance from his father and returns to England and spends much of his time at New Bond Street in London.
1759: Serves as an officer in the South Hampshire Militia.
1761: Notices he has a lump near his genitals and consults a surgeon Caesar Hawkins and also Mr. Andrews. Begins keeping a detailed diary.
1763: Edward Gibbon goes on a grand Tour and arrives in Paris. Goes on to Lausanne.
1764: Meets Suzanne Curchod once more and makes a final break with her. Leaves Lausanne and goes on to Italy with William Guise where he tours Turin, Milan, Genoa, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Pisa, Rome and Naples. Makes a detailed tour of the Roman forum in October and it was there that he got his idea for writing the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”.
1765: Returns to England.
1768: Publishes two volumes of the literary review “Mémoires littéraires de la Grande-Bretagne” with his friend Deyverdun.
1769: Deyverdun returns to the Continent.
1770: Edward Gibbon resigns his commission in the Hampshire Militia. Death of his father. His inheritance now gives him financial stability.
1772: Leases out the Buriton family estate and moves to 7 Bentick St, Cavendish Square, London.
1773: First starts writing the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” He succeeded Oliver Goldsmith as Professor in Ancient History at the Royal Academy.
1774: Elected as a Member of Parliament for Liskeard in Cornwall. He is nominated to be a member of Samuel Johnson’s Literary Club by Oliver Goldsmith but is blackballed, meaning that an anonymous member had refused his admission. He is later admitted. Achieves a contract with the publishers Strahan & Cadell. He was initiated a freemason of the Premier Grand Lodge of England
1775: Delivers Volume One of the “Decline and Fall” to his publishers.
1776: The work is published for the first time and meets with a hostile reception. One of his major detractors is Joseph Priestley.
1777: Leaves for an extended trip to Paris, where he meets Benjamin Franklin.
1778: Gibbon starts work on Volume Two of the “Decline and Fall”.
1779: Appointed to the Board of Trade and Plantations by the Government. Loses his Liskeard seat in Parliament when his Patron Edward Eliot defects to the opposition.
1781: Publication of Volumes two and Three of the “Decline and Fall”. Elected as Member of Parliament for Lymington.
1782: Starts work on Volume Four of the “Decline and Fall”. Loses his position on the Board of Trade.
1783: Edward Gibbon leaves London to live in Lausanne with Deyverdun at his estate called La Grotte.
1785: Starts work on Volume Five of the “Decline and Fall” although progress is interrupt red by an attack of gout.
1786: Volume Five completed.
1787: Volume Six completed and with it the entire project. Returns to England with the manuscript and is paid £4,000 by his publisher.
1788: Volumes four to six of the “Decline and Fall” are published. He returns to Lausanne and starts composing his memoirs. Adam Smith remarked that Gibbon’s triumph had made him “at the very head of the literary tribe.”
1789: Death of Deyverdun which means he inherits La Grotte.
1790: Reads Edmund Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France” which he agrees with.
1791: Edward Gibbon hears of the Terror in Paris from friends.
1792: Fears a French invasion of Switzerland.
1793: Returns to England an stays with Lord Sheffield after the death of his wife. In August the swelling in his lower body increases rapidly. Becomes dangerously ill from and moves to 76 St James Street, London with his friend the bookseller Peter Elmsley.
1794: Gibbon has three operations to drain fluid from his body but things get worse as the knives were not sterile.
(1796): Lord Sheffield published “The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon” in 2 volumes.
1761: “Essai sur L’Etude de la Litterature”.
1770: “Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of the ‘Aeneid’ (anonymous)
1776: “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”.
1792: “On a Grander Scale” (Memoirs)
Never married but was forced to break off his engagement to Suzanna Curchod by his disapproving father. He kept in touch with Curchod all his life, even after she later married Jacques Necker the Finance Minister of King Louis the Sixteenth of France and became the mother of Madame de Staël.
When and Where did he Die?
16th June 1794, London, England from peritonitis.
Age at Death:
Site of Grave:
North transept of the St. Mary and St. Andrew’s parish church, Fletching, East Sussex, England in a plot owned by Lord Sheffield’s family .
Places of Interest:
Sheffield Park (wrote some of Decline and Fall” there).