Thomas Chatterton
English poet and forger (1752-1770)
Thomas Chatterton (20 November 1752 – 24 August 1770) was an English poet who committed suicide at age 17. He was an influence on Romantic artists of the period such as Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Although fatherless and raised in poverty, Chatterton was a studious child, publishing work by the age of 11. He was able to pass off his work as that of a fictional 15th-century poet called Thomas Rowley, though he was denounced by Horace Walpole.
At 17, he sought outlets for his political writings in London, having impressed the Lord Mayor, William Beckford, and the leader John Wilkes, but his earnings were not enough to keep him, and he poisoned himself. His life and death attracted much interest among romantic poets, and Alfred de Vigny wrote a play about him. The oil painting The Death of Chatterton by Pre-Raphaelite artist Henry Wallis was inspired by him.
Childhood
Chatterton was born in Bristol to Sarah Chatterton, his father also named Thomas having died three months previous. His sister Mary was three years older and her married name was Newton. In Bristol, the office of the sexton of St Mary Redcliffe had long been held by the Chatterton family.
“Thomas Chatterton” enters the record as english poet and forger (1752-1770). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Thomas, Chatterton and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q380509. VIAF identifies the subject as 32071684. The Library of Congress control number is n80039722. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1752 and 1770.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Chatterton” 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.