George Henry Caunter

George Henry was born into Devonshire gentry in the South Devon village of Dittisham. He was the eldest child of George Caunter of Staverton and Harriett Georgina, née Hutchings, of Dittisham. His father went to the East when his son was about four years old[1] and became acting superintendent of Prince of Wales Island - today Penang, Malaysia. His wife soon joined him and died there in childbirth about 1800.[2]

As a young man, Caunter went to the new British Crown Colony of Mauritius, which had been captured from the French in 1810. He became assistant in the Treasury office in June 1812 and was granted leave in September to travel to Prince of Wales Island, where his father had died at the end of the previous year.[3][4] He returned to Mauritius and in 1813 married the Mauritius-born Aurélie Bestel, the daughter of a French politician.[5] By 1816, Caunter was employed as a government interpreter in French and English.[6][7] Two years later he was working as an advocate in the Vice Admiralty Court, and in March of 1818 the acting governor, Hall, appointed him Judge of the court.[8] In his capacity as judge, Caunter was involved in the British attempts to suppress the slave trade.[9]

In 1819 he travelled to England with his brother-in-law. Although his wife and two infant sons remained in Mauritius, Caunter stayed in England for the next years. In 1824 he went to Paris to research a projected publication and ended up staying there, working for a glover, Bodier.[10] He got to know his employer's niece, Pauline Brie, and obtained her father's permission to marry her. In October 1825, only months after the marriage, the father found out from Caunter's brother-in-law that Caunter was already married. Charged with bigamy, Caunter alleged that he had originally been married in Madras in 1811, to a woman who was ill when he left for Mauritius. He had kept quiet about her there, not wanting to be censured for having married a Creole woman. He had received news of her death and had married Aurélie Bestel. Finding out later that his first wife had not died until after he had married Aurélie, he considered his marriage to the latter to be legally void. This, he argued, allowed him to marry Mlle Brie legally in Paris.[11][12]

The French court tried fruitlessly to obtain proof of the Madras marriage from the British colonial authorities, Caunter remaining in custody all the while. He was finally convicted in 1828 and sentenced to seven years' forced labour. The Gazette des tribunaux concluded its detailed coverage of the trial with the observation that "The accused, whose features are regular and whose physiognomy is remarkable, maintained the most profound calm throughout the proceedings and even on hearing the verdict."[13] The British embassy obtained a commutation of the sentence to banishment, and in 1829 Caunter returned to England.[14] The case attracted the attention of the international press.[15][16][17]

In the years that followed, Caunter participated in the cultural life of London and was active as a reviewer, editor, composer, translator and writer. He moved to Gloucester about 1837 and died there in 1843.[18]

Caunter became well-known in London's literary circles in the 1830s.[19] He was one of the principal contributors to the general-interest magazine The Athenæum, writing reviews of French-language books, and became editor of The Court Magazine after the editorship of Caroline Norton.[20][21] His younger brother, the clergyman and writer John Hobart Caunter, was at this time writing for some of the same titles.[22]

George Henry's obituary in The Gentleman's Magazine noted that he "was a most indefatigable and able writer, although his name was rarely prefixed to his productions. ... [He] was considered one of the first musical critics in the metropolis."[23] He wrote about composers and musicians such as Rossini, Aspull, Dragonetti, Beethoven and Meyerbeer.[24][25][26][27] In his 1836 essay on Meyerbeer, he argues that "The opera of "Robert le Diable" is alone sufficient to immortalise the name of Meyerbeer."[28] Caunter also published compositions of his own, such as Twelve Fantasias on Favourite Airs by Mozart and Paisiello, for the Piano-forte and Violoncello (1831).[29] The Musical World considered his composition The Banks of the Wye a "melody by no means devoid of grace" and his When Jove from His Throne a "clear, bold, and effective melody", though finding faults in both pieces.[30]

Working from the manuscripts of the French Napoleonic Marshal Ney, Caunter produced a translation, Military Studies by Marshal Ney; Written for the Use of His Officers (1833).[31] He also wrote The Hand-Book of Chemistry, published in 1839 and considered by A. Nesbit and sons of Kennington-House Academy to be "well adapted for Schools".[32][33]

Caunter's wife Aurélie Bestel (b. 1795) died in Mauritius in 1855. His father-in-law, Antoine Bestel (1766-1852), had been secretary of the Assemblée Coloniale in Mauritius (then the Isle de France) during the French Revolution. In 1800 he had helped thwart a Royalist conspiracy in the island of Réunion. He remained active in the public affairs of Mauritius under British sovereignty.[34]

Of the three children of George Henry and Aurélie, two died in infancy; the surviving child, Lewis Anthony Henry Caunter (1815-1873), became a lawyer in Mauritius. In 1847 this son was the recipient of an envelope to which was affixed the 2d "Blue Mauritius", which would become one of the most valuable stamps in the world. The extant fragment of envelope with the stamp is known among collectors as the "Caunter fragment" or (based on the envelope's apparent reading) the "Caunten fragment".[35][36][37]

Besides the writer John Hobart Caunter (1794-1851), George Henry had a brother, Richard McDonald Caunter (1798-1879), who like Hobart was a minister in the Church of England and who was the author of Attila, a Tragedy; and Other Poems (1832).[38]