Magrath, Edward (1790–1861), club secretary

Edward Magrath was born on 10 December 1790, the son of Edward Magrath and his wife Ann (née Jesson) of Cheapside, and he was baptised at the church of St Lawrence Jewry, London, on 4 January 1791. His siblings included William, born on 29 April 1792, Henry Jesson, born on 14 January 1796; Ann, born on 19 September 1797; Eleanor, born on 22 October 1798, and Louisa (‘Loisa’ in the baptism register), born on 23 October 1800. His relations included Spencer Hall, Librarian of the Athenaeum, and his brother William, joint-founder of the publishers Chapman and Hall.

Through his attendance at lectures in natural philosophy given by John Tatum in 1810 and 1811 Magrath met Michael Faraday, who became a lifelong friend. The two men both joined the City Philosophical Society, founded by Tatum, of which Magrath was Secretary from 1814 to 1816, and together they established a ‘mutual-improvement plan’, consisting of a small group of men who met regularly for several years to improve their pronunciation and use of language. These meetings occasionally took place at Magrath’s warehouse in Wood Street.

On 15 April 1824 his sister Eleanor (‘eldest daughter of the late Mr. Edward Magrath, of Cheapside’) married Joseph Oldroyd of Bread Street.

The Athenaeum Club was founded the same year, and Faraday was appointed its first Secretary, but ‘finding the occupation incompatible with his pursuits, he resigned in May 1824’, and Magrath, who at this time was working as an assistant at the Royal Institution, was made Secretary in his place (Bence Jones, p. 58). Magrath continued as Secretary of the Athenaeum till 1855, when he resigned the post for reasons of ill health. In 1830 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and he also became a Fellow of the Zoological Society.

In 1851 Magrath (‘Secretary Atheneum Club’), was living with his unmarried sister Louisa in Upper Terrace, Hampstead, next-door to his brother Henry (‘Bill Broker’) and his sister Eleanor Oldroyd. Louisa and Edward (‘Fundholder’) were living in the same street in 1861 (censuses), but the latter died just a few weeks after the census was taken. The news of his death was reported in the Evening Standard on 3 August, as follows: ‘MAGRATH.—On the 1st inst., at his residence, Upper-terrace, Hamp-stead-heath, after long illness, Edward Magrath, Esq., late Secretary of the Athenæum, Pall-mall, F.R.G.S., F.Z.S.’ He was buried in the parish of St John’s, Hampstead, on the 7th.

The News (London), 18 Apr. 1824, p. 8
Evening Standard, 3 Aug. 1861, p. 7
Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. xxiv (1854), p. xxix
Henry Bence Jones, The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870)
Humphrey Ward, History of the Athenaeum, 1824–1925 (1926)
Frank A. J. L. James, ‘Michael Faraday, the City Philosophical Society, and the Society of Arts’, RSA Journal, vol. 140, no. 5426 (Feb. 1992), pp. 192–9
The Correspondence of Michael Faraday, ed. Frank A. J. L. James (1993)
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, under Spencer and William Hall
Parish registers, censuses (via ancestry.co.uk)