Comissioner in Bankruptcy and of the Victualling Office 1785-1811. Author of “A Treatise on Convictions on Penal Statutes” and a number of translations of the poetry of Horace the Roman poet.


From Oxford DNB

Boscawen, William (1752–1811), lawyer and writer, was born on 28 August 1752, the younger son of General George Boscawen and Anne Trevor, and nephew of the admiral Edward Boscawen (1711–1761). He was educated at Eton College, where he was said to have been a great favourite of Dr Barnard. On 10 October 1770 he became a gentleman commoner of Exeter College, Oxford, and on settling in London about 1773 studied law under a Cornish lawyer, Mr Justice Buller, and went on the western circuit.

Boscawen published two or three law treatises, and was appointed a commissioner in bankruptcy. In 1785 he was made a commissioner of the victualling office. He was much attached to literary pursuits, and translated first the Odes, Epodes, and Carmen seculare of Horace (1793), then the Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry (1797), the notes for which he was indebted to Dr Foster of Eton College. In 1792 he published a Treatise on Convictions on Penal Statutes, and in 1798, 1800, and 1801 some original poems and other works. He was also a contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine, and to the British Critic. In 1812 T. J. Mathias deprecated Boscawen's translating skills as displaying an ‘unresisting imbecility’ (Mathias, 260).

With his wife, Charlotte, daughter of the Revd Dr Ibbetson, Boscawen had five daughters. About seven years after his wife's death Boscawen died of asthma on 8 May 1811 at Little Chelsea, and his will was proved there on 2 July of the same year. He was of an affectionate and benevolent disposition, and wrote the annual verses for the Literary Fund until within five years of his death.