Samuel Nicholson (1738–1827) was a London wholesale haberdasher, known as a Unitarian and associate of radicals. He is remembered for his social connections with
William Wordsworth in the early 1790s.
Earlier life
Nicholson was born on 4 September 1738, the son of George Nicholson, and grandson of the nonconformist minister George Nicholson (1636–1690) of
Kirkoswald, Cumberland.[1][2] He was in business in London as a wholesale haberdasher, in
Cateaton Street.[3] His warehouse was adjacent to his home.[4]
Wordsworth met Nicholson through a family connection, Elizabeth Threlkeld, who had been
Dorothy Wordsworth's foster mother (1778–1787) in
Halifax, Yorkshire.[6][7] Elizabeth married William Rawson in 1791; they were both Unitarians. They moved to London from Halifax, knew Nicholson, and introduced William to him.[8][self-published source?]
The period when Wordsworth dined regularly with Nicholson has tentatively been placed in spring of 1793.[9] They went together to hear
Joseph Fawcett preach.[5] Nicholas Roe has suggested that Wordsworth's further engagement with radical English reformers may trace back to his connection with Nicholson.[10] It has been inferred, by Roe, that Nicholson probably introduced Wordsworth to
Joseph Johnson the publisher.[11] Keay places Wordsworth's own radical beliefs in the context of a period 1793–5 and contact with the views and milieu of the Society of Constitutional Information, to which Johnson also belonged: the
Norman Yoke, and the Tory
Bolingbroke's arguments on capital and corruption.[12]
Nicholson, in any case, is credited with Wordsworth's introduction into the London group of radical dissenters, including
William Godwin. They played a significant part in his thinking, until the middle of 1795.[13] "Mr Nicholson" was referenced in the notes to The Excursion.[14][15]
Later life
Nicholson was a founding partner of the Glasgow Bank in 1809.[16] He acted as trustee of
Dr Williams's Library from 1815 to 1827.[17] He died on 26 October 1827, at
Ham Common.[18] In the last year of his life he had donated to the orphan school on City Road.[19]
Family
Nicholson married Mary Haydon.[1] Their eldest daughter Caroline married in 1804 Thomas Hockin Kingdon, Fellow of
Exeter College, Oxford.[20] Harriet, the fourth daughter, married John Vowler of Parnacott in 1817.[21]
The only son of the marriage was George Thomas Nicholson.[1] He studied at
Manchester Academy from 1803 to 1805.[22] In 1806 he matriculated at
Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1809. That year he entered the
Inner Temple.[23] He became a barrister,[22] and was President of the National Life Assurance Society; it was founded in 1829, was a
mutual insurance company from 1847, and merged with the Mutual Life Assurance Society in 1896 to form The National Mutual Life Assurance Society.[24][25]
^Library, Dr. Williams's; Jones, Stephen Kay (1917). A Short Account of the Charity & Library Established Under the Will of the Late Rev. Daniel Williams. Elsom and Company. p. 136.