On this day in 1805 Samuel Forde was born in Cork, Ireland, making this his 208th birthday!

Happy 208th Birthday Samuel Forde!

Here we are celebrating this auspicious (even frabjous) day with cake and candles! (Although, judging from the picture, Mr Forde clearly has us worn out.)

As of yet, we know comparatively little about Forde’s family and early life… that is, until we can conduct more research at the Cork City Archives and the RCB (Representative Church Body) Library in Dublin. What we do know is that his father, also named Samuel Forde, experienced some difficulties, deserted his family and emigrated to America while the young Samuel was still a child. The artist’s elder brother William was a musician of some talent and supported him in his education. At the age of just thirteen Samuel enrolled in the newly formed Cork School of Art and was set on his artistic vocation.

Birthday Boy! Samuel Forde’s Self-Portrait (Portrait of the Artist). Image: © Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. Photo: Dara McGrath.

Obviously Forde’s arrival into this world is the most significant event of Friday 5 April 1805 (!), but on the very same day Charles Lamb did happen to write a letter to William Wordsworth and, preparing for its onward journey, the Lewis and Clarke Expedition received a visit from the Mandans of the Missouri River.

Beyond 5 April, here’s what else was happening in the year of Samuel Forde’s birth…

1805

• George III was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon I) was Emperor of the French, and Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States
• the birth of artist Samuel Palmer (27 January) and writer Hans Christian Andersen (2 April)
• the first Trooping the Colour ceremony was held at Horse Guards Parade in London (4 June)
• the Lewis and Clarke Expedition sighted the Great Falls of the Missouri River (13 June) and later reached the Pacific Ocean (7 November)
• the Irish rebel leader Michael Dwyer (Society of the United Irishmen) was transported from Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin to New South Wales, Australia as an unsentenced exile (August)
• the French forces of Napoleon fought in the Battles of Elchingen, Ulm, Trafalgar, Dürenstein, Schöngrabern, and Austerlitz
• the British naval fleet led by Admiral Horatio Nelson defeated the French and Spanish at the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October)
• the death of Horatio Nelson (21 October) at the Battle of Trafalgar aged 47
• the French and Austrians signed the Peace of Pressburg (26 December)

The Art of 1805

• William Blake’s The Four and Twenty Elders Casting their Crowns before the Divine Throne 
• Jacques-Louis David’s Portrait of Pope Pius VII 
• François Gérard’s Portrait of Madame Récamier 
• Francisco de Goya’s The Clothed Maja 
• Thomas Douglas Guest’s Bearing the Dead Body of Patroclus to the Camp, Achilles’s Grief

The Literature of 1805

• Charlotte Dacre’s Confessions of the Nun of St Omer
• Denis Diderot’s Le Neveu de Rameau (Rameau’s Nephew)
• Maria Edgeworth’s The Modern Griselda
• Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville’s Le Dernier Homme (The Last Man)
• Elizabeth Helme’s The Pilgrims of the Cross, or The Chronicles of Christabelle de Mowbray
• William Henry Ireland’s The Confessions of William Henry Ireland
• Ellis Cornelia Knight’s Description of Latium, or Campagna di Roma
• Matthew Gregory Lewis’ The Bravo of Venice
• Mary Tighe’s Psyche, or The Legend of Love

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Learn more about Samuel Forde

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Click here for more on the year 1805