I was born on 7th February to my Father John a clerk at the Navy Office and my Mother Elizabeth, at what is now 393 Commercial Road in Landport. I was named after my Godfather the head of an established shipping company.


At the age of just three, in 1815, my brother Frances and I, moved to Chatham in Kent and stayed there until I was eleven. Which was just as well as by now I had three more brothers Frederick, Albert and Augustus and two sisters, Letitia and Harriet.


I was afforded a Dame School eduction, at least until my father was imprisoned by his creditors. I was put into care working ten hours a day at a warehouse not far from Charing Cross. Age twenty I became a member of the Garrick Club, and auditioned and wrote for several plays.


I paid my way with a job at the House of Commons, where I was nicknamed Moses and as a journalist for several London papers. It was then I published my first work “A Dinner at Poplar Walk”. On the 2nd of April I married Cathrine Hogarth, together we had ten children of our own.


In 1846 I co-set up a home for fallen women. My views as a racist were widely known, but it was for my works in literature that I will forever be immortalised. Despite my wishes, upon my death, to be buried in Rochester Cathedral, I was laid to rest in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.
Who am I ?