“Never made the least attempt to shake off the authority of Great-Britain”

Last month I profiled the Rev. Samuel Madden, the Irish minister who in 1733 was the first person to write fiction based on time travel—a book he suppressed immediately after printing.

Madden wasn’t the only eighteenth-century author to imagine a future George VI, however.

In 1763 the London printer William Nicoll published The Reign of George VI, its author anonymous. It’s scanned here.

This book discusses the years 1900–1925. It praises the future fictional George VI (not the real one who took the throne in 1936) based on ideas in The Patriot King (1749) by Viscount Bolingbroke and thoughts of where the British Empire might go after victory over the French.

The Reign of George VI says interesting things about the British territories across the Atlantic Ocean:

But the immense region of country which the English possessed in North America, was what most extended and forwarded the British manufactures; the King was there Sovereign of a tract of much greater extent than all Europe:

the constitution of the several divisions of that vast monarchy, was admirably designed to keep the whole in continual dependance on the mother country: there were eleven millions of souls in the British American dominions in the year 1920: they were in possession of, perhaps the finest country in the world, and yet had never made the least attempt to shake off the authority of Great-Britain:

indeed, the multiplicity of governments which prevailed over the whole country —— the various constitutions of them, rendered the execution of such a scheme absolutely impossible.

This wide extended region which increased its people so surprisingly fast, was far from being forgot by the King; many noble harbours were surrounded with towns, and made naval magazines; a prodigious number of ships were built by order, from Great-Britain; and the royal navy itself boasted many very fine ships that were built in America.

On the one hand, the author contemplated the chance that American colonists would “shake off the authority of Great-Britain.” On the other, he or she quickly dismissed the possibility that the American colonies could unite to do that or feel “forgot by the King”—a lesson for George III.

In 1899 the Oxford military historian Charles Oman edited and published a second edition of The Reign of George VI, and that in turn was reprinted in 1972. However, Oman’s text included “omissions, rearrangements of sentence order, repunctuation, and other silent variations from the original,” Fred Anderson wrote in his essay about the 1763 Treaty of Paris in The Making of Peace.

The original text of The Reign of George VI has since been printed in the first volume of British Future Fiction, 1700-1914. It occasionally gets mixed up with Madden’s earlier book, or he gets credited for this one.

In Invasions: Fears and Fantasies of Imagined Wars in Britain, 1871–1918, Christian K. Melby suggested that Oman’s republication of The Reign of George VI fed the craze for invasion literature that swept Britain in the early twentieth century. However, since that trend was already under way when the book resurfaced, the influence may have gone the other way—the Oxford scholar tripping across an old title that seemed to fit surprisingly well with modern concerns.

Rev. Samuel Madden, the Lover of His Country

Samuel Madden was born in Dublin in 1686. His father was a physician, and his mother was part of the prominent Molyneux family.

Even before completing his studies at Trinity College Dublin in 1705, Madden inherited a considerable estate from his father. Therefore, while he became the Church of Ireland minister for the parishes of Galloon and Drummully, he never had to rely on those salaries.

(Some sources say Madden was chaplain or tutor to Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, but I don’t see when that would have been.)

Madden married Jane Magill (also written as Jean McGill) in 1709, and the couple had ten children over the next twenty-five years.

According to the Rev. Philip Skelton, who lived with the family as a curate and tutor early in his career, Mrs. Madden was “haughty” about her family background, indulgent to her children, and so strict in managing the family finances that she “took care to keep [her husband’s] pocket empty of money” so he couldn’t give it away.

The Rev. Mr. Madden was known for his charity. He made donations, collected money for causes, and helped to set up the Dublin Society. Through that organization and Trinity College he offered prizes or “premiums” for various discoveries and feats to benefit the nation, and was thus remembered as “Premium” Madden.

Madden’s other talent was for writing. In 1729 his play Themistocles, the Lover of His Country was performed in London to good reviews. Nine years later, his Reflections and Resolutions Proper for the Gentlemen of Ireland, as to their Conduct for the Service of their Country, as Landlords, as Masters of Families, as Protestants, as Descended from British Ancestors, as Country Gentlemen and Farmers, as Justices of the Peace, as Merchants, as Members of Parliament described Irish society and the responsibilities of its ruling class. Madden corresponded with Dr. Samuel Johnson and other British literary lights.

In 1733, between those two major works, Madden anonymously wrote and published Memoirs of the Twentieth Century: Being Original Letters of State under George the Sixth, volume 1. In the vein of Gulliver’s Travels, published seven years before by the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift, this book critiqued contemporary society through a fictional narrative set at a distance. But instead of going to outlandish places, Madden invited readers into the far future—1997!

Madden’s first narrator, in the preface, is an opportunistic politician who’s lost his seat in Parliament and is sliding toward becoming a Jacobite. He describes how in 1728 his “good Genius” appeared to him during an illness. This spirit showed him “several large Volumes” of letters written to his descendant, the Lord High Treasurer of Great Britain at the end of the twentieth century.

By that time, these dispatches from British diplomats report, Jesuits ruled much of the world. Their pope held vast lands in Africa, Paraguay, and China; dominated the weak governments of Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire; and was making inroads among the Russians and Tatars. But Britain was standing firm and united under the House of Hanover. The narrator therefore returns to his patriotic support of the British system, and his Protestant determination to oppose Jesuits.

Memoirs of the Twentieth Century was a milestone in speculative fiction, the first fictional narrative built around time travel. In daring to imagine a future, it denied the possibility of imminent end times. The book may not qualify as science fiction, however, since Madden didn’t imagine technology any different from what he knew in 1733. And it had very little literary influence since hardly anybody got to read it.

According to a footnote in John Nichols’s Biographical and Literary Anecdotes of William Bowyer: Printer (1782):

A thousand copies were printed, with such very great dispatch, that three printers were employed on it (Bowyer, Woodfall, and Roberts); and the names of an uncommon number of reputable booksellers appeared in the title-page. In less than a fortnight, however, 890 of these copies were delivered to Dr. Madden, and probably destroyed. The current report is, that the edition was suppressed on the day of publication.

The promised five additional volumes never appeared.

Madden had apparently trodden on some sensitive toes, but it’s not clear whose. The picture of parliamentary politicking isn’t flattering, and some sources guess that Sir Robert Walpole suppressed the book. There’s a long dedication to the Prince of Wales, who would be estranged from his father, George II—but that young prince wasn’t yet the anchor of formal opposition. Modern scholars suggest that Madden had the bad luck to publish just when Britain had to deal with the War of the Polish Succession, and continental turmoil made any hint of sympathy for the Stuarts problematic.

Few copies of Memoirs of the Twentieth Century survived. This one is at Oxford University. Charles James Fox owned another. But word of the book must have gotten around because by the end of the 1700s it was famous for being rare.

In the fall of 1757, the Rev. Mr. Madden sent a letter to the Royal Society praising Benjamin Franklin’s Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among the British Plantations in America. He wrote:

I am rejoiced at Mr. Franklin’s coming over with so good a Plan which to the shame of Governments has been overlooked such a number of years. If our Colonies be not properly modelled and protected nothing but Ruin and disgrace can follow.

That proved to be a better prophecy than Memoirs of the Twentieth Century.

The Rev. Dr. Samuel Madden died in 1765. A few years after that, his grandson Thomas Hawkshaw joined the British army, only to be wounded on the first day of the American war.

The Short Life of Thomas Hawkshaw

When I was writing about Lt. Thomas Hawkshaw earlier this month, I kept wishing I had more individual information about him, and I kept being styimed.

There were multiple Thomas Hawkshaws in the British military in the late eighteenth century. Modern genealogical websites offer information, but it’s contradictory and conflated.

This week I lucked out in finding a reliable source: the monument Hawkshaw’s widow paid to install inside St. Fechins Church in Termonfeckin, County Louth, Ireland. It reads:

To the memory of Thomas Hawkshaw, late of the 5th regt of foot who died 22d Jan 1793 aged 42 years.

Also to the memory of his son John William, Lieut in the 90th regt. Born 11th Octr 1785, and died 14th Novr 1812. And of his son Thomas, who was born 9th Decr 1788 and died in 1802. And of his son Wallop Brabazon Hawkshaw, late Lieut of the Vigo man of war, who was born 30th June 1790, and died 30th Septr 1813.

Captain Thomas was son to the Revd. John Hawkshaw of the Co. of Monaghan. His widow Vincentia, daughter of Wallop Brabazon Esqr, has erected this monument to the memory of her husband and all her offspring.

Also to the memory of Vincentia, Widow of the above Captain Hawkshaw. She died 1st Feby 1825, aged 78.

That source in turn helped me to find more, so I can fill out the life of Thomas Hawkshaw.

After growing up in Dublin, John Hawkshaw graduated from Trinity College in 1734 and took an M.A. three years later. Taking holy orders in the Church of Ireland, he was vicar at Clontibret, then rector at Monaghan starting in 1740. Three years later, he married Elizabeth Madden, a daughter of the Rev. Samuel Madden, D.D.; she was seven years his senior. The couple started having children. Thomas was born in 1751 and named after a paternal uncle.

From 1759 to 1762, the Rev. John Hawkshaw was the rector at Dromore, County Tyrone. He then accepted a calling at Tydavnet, back in County Monaghan, and remained the rector there for the rest of his life.

Some of the Hawkshaw brothers followed their father into the clerical profession while others, including Thomas, joined the British military. He was still in his early twenties when he was so gravely wounded on 19 Apr 1775. During the war he rose to the rank of captain.

According to Evelyn Hawkshaw Rogers’s Descendants of John Hawkshaw of Louisburgh, County Mayo, Ireland, Capt. Hawkshaw retired from his company in Belfast in 1786. He married Vincentia Brabazon, and they started their own family, including sons John William, Thomas, and Wallop Brabazon (named after his maternal grandfather).

Thomas Hawkshaw’s mother died in 1787. The death of one of Thomas’s younger brothers is recorded by an inscription in Chester Cathedral:

Adjacent lie the remains of
George Hawkshaw Esqr
a native of Ireland and
Sixteen years a Lieutenant in
His Majesty’s Marine Forces

Returning after a long voyage
to an aged Father
and expecting friends
He was arrested here
by the hand of God
the ninth day of May
MDCCXCII [1792]
in the xxxivth year of his age.

Hugh Hawkshaw and Robert McCleverty two of his numerous friends sensible of his worth and many Virtues Pay this humble but most affectionate tribute.

The Rev. John Hawkshaw died later that same year.

Capt. Thomas Hawkshaw passed away in early 1793, only forty-two years old, having lived more than sixteen years after being shot in the throat. As the top inscription shows, one of his sons joined the army, another the navy, and both those men died in their twenties. Capt. Hawkshaw’s widow Vincentia lived on until 1825.

One more detail: Capt. Hawkshaw’s grandfather invented time-travel literature.

TOMORROW: Back to the future.