Augustus J. C. Hare

Rome, 1834 - 1903, Saint Leonards, England

Biographyhttp://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n87840949
found: LC data base, 5/10/88 (hdg.: Hare, Augustus John Cuthbert, 1834-1903; usage: Augustus J.C. Hare)
Hare, Augustus John Cuthbert (1834–1903), author, born on 13 March 1834, at the Villa Strozzi, Rome, was the youngest child in a family of three sons and two daughters born to Francis George Hare (1786–1842) of Herstmonceux, Sussex, and his wife, Anne Frances, daughter of Sir John Dean Paul of Rodborough and sister of Sir John Dean Paul (1802–1868). Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare were his uncles. In August 1835 he was adopted by his godmother, Maria, daughter of Oswald Leycester, rector of Stoke upon Tern, Shropshire, and widow of his uncle, Augustus Hare. His godmother made her home in Herstmonceux parish and his parents renounced all further claim on him. The account he gives of his childhood in his autobiography has unwisely been taken at face value by some authors, and his account of its grimness sits ill with his obvious devotion to his adoptive mother and his wish to be buried beside her. Hare was educated at Harnish rectory from 1843 to 1846 and was sent in 1847 to Harrow School, but ill health compelled him to leave the following year. He then studied under private tutors until in 1853 he matriculated at University College, Oxford, graduating BA in 1857. After living abroad, mostly in Italy, from June 1857 until November 1858, he returned to England and in the following year undertook for John Murray a handbook of Berks, Bucks and Oxfordshire (1860). A Handbook to Durham, in the same series, followed in 1863. His adoptive mother's failing health then made residence in a warm climate necessary, and she left Herstmonceux in 1860. Except for occasional visits to England, Hare remained abroad, mostly in Italy and the Riviera, until June 1870. His A Winter in Menton appeared in 1862. In November 1870 Maria died, and Hare sought to perpetuate her memory in Memorials of a Quiet Life (3 vols., 1872–6). The book ran into eighteen editions, and inaugurated a series of biographies written by him in the same mildly deferential key and which found an audience despite criticisms of their prolixity.

Hare's biographies were outnumbered by his guidebooks, for which with his autobiography he is now chiefly remembered. They combined his own lively and often witty observations with extracts from other books, often more copious than was justifiable. Freeman charged Hare with appropriating in Cities of Northern and Central Italy (3 vols., 1876) articles of his in the Saturday Review. He was accused, too, of copying Murray's Handbook to Northern Italy, and was involved in consequence in legal proceedings. But despite these complaints Hare's practice remained unaltered. His writings earned him considerable wealth: he left more than £22,000 in his will, having spent very considerable sums enlarging his home at Holmhurst, St Leonards, Sussex, and on his library and collection of works of art. He was a competent watercolourist, and he illustrated many of his own works. An exhibition of his watercolour sketches took place in London in 1902.

Hare enjoyed society and when in England spent much time visiting country houses, where he was well known as a raconteur of ghost stories. His large circle of distinguished friends included Oscar II, king of Sweden, who decorated him with the order of St Olaf in 1878. His The Story of my Life (6 vols., 1896–1900) was described in 1912 as ‘a long, tedious, and indiscreet autobiography’ (DNB). By the late twentieth century, however, Hare was undergoing something of a revival. A society of enthusiasts and collectors of his works was formed: a one-volume condensed edition of his autobiography was edited by A. Miller and J. Papp in 1995, and it and the original proved a useful source for those interested in country-house life in the later nineteenth century. The play Eminent Victorian by James Roose-Evans (1996) is based on the life of Hare. He died, unmarried, on 22 January 1903 at Holmhurst, and was buried in the graveyard of All Saints' Church, Herstmonceux, Sussex.

Elizabeth Baigent
Sources

DNB · The Athenaeum (31 Jan 1903), 147 · The Times (23 Jan 1903) · The Times (27 Jan 1903) · The Times (28 Jan 1903) · S. Leslie, Men were different (1937) · WW (1903) · Peculiar people: the story of my life: Augustus Hare, ed. A. Miller and J. Papp (1995) [condensed edn of his 6 vol. autobiography] · Augustus Hare in Italy, ed. G. Henderson (1977) · augustus-hare.tripod.com, 9 May 2001 · www.umilta.net/hare.html, 9 May 2001 · M. Barnes, Augustus Hare (1985) · private information (2015) [C. Whittick]
Archives

E. Sussex RO, personal inventory; sketchbooks :: Borth. Inst., corresp. with second Viscount Halifax · Royal Palace, Stockholm, letters to Gustav V

Likenesses

G. da Pozzo, portrait, University College, Oxford · woodburytype photograph, NPG
Wealth at death

£22,157 17s. 0d.: probate, 17 April 1903, CGPLA Eng. & Wales
© Oxford University Press 2004–16
All rights reserved: see legal notice Oxford University Press

Elizabeth Baigent, ‘Hare, Augustus John Cuthbert (1834–1903)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2015 [http://proxy.bostonathenaeum.org:2055/view/article/33710, accessed 19 Oct 2017]

Augustus John Cuthbert Hare (1834–1903): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33710 3

Person TypeIndividual

Last Updated8/7/24

Terms