Hugo John Belfour
poet

Hugo John Belfour (1802–1827), who used the pseudonym St. John Dorset, was an English poet and cleric.
Life
He was born in or near London, the eldest child of Edward Belfour, of the Navy Office, by his wife Catherine, daughter of John Greenwell, of the India House. In May 1826 he was ordained, and appointed to a curacy in Jamaica, with prospects of preferment. He died in Jamaica in September 1827.
Works
While still 18, Belfour produced The Vampire, a Tragedy in five acts, by St. John Dorset, Tragedy London, 1st and 2nd editions, 1821, and Loveless, another five-act tragedy. The scene is laid in Egypt. The second edition was inscribed "To W. C. Macready, Esq.", to whom the work had been submitted in manuscript. Belfour also wrote Montezuma, a Tragedy in five acts, and other Poems, by St.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16198267. VIAF identifies the subject as 13923132. The Library of Congress control number is n89671625. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1802, 1827, 1826 and 1821.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hugo John Belfour” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.