Hogg, Thomas Jefferson

Hogg, Thomas Jefferson (1792-1862), English man of letters, was born at Norton, Durham, on the 24th of May 1792. He was educated at Durham grammar school and at University College, Oxford. Here he became the intimate friend of the poet Shelley, with whom in 1811 he was expelled from the university for refusing to disclaim connexion with the authorship of the pamphlet The Necessity for Atheism. He was then sent to study law at York, where he remained for six months. Hogg’s behaviour to Harriet Shelley interrupted his relations with her husband for some time, but in 1813 the friendship was renewed in London. In 1817 Hogg was called to the bar, and became later a revising barrister. In 1844 he inherited £2000 under Shelley’s will, and in 1855, in accordance with the wishes of the poet’s family, began to write Shelley’s biography. The first two volumes of it were published in 1858, but they proved to be far more an autobiography than a biography, and Shelley’s representatives refused Hogg further access to the materials necessary for its completion. Hogg died on the 27th of August 1862.