Richard McDonald Caunter

Richard McDonald was born at Government House on Prince of Wales Island (today Penang, Malaysia), where his father George Caunter was chief magistrate and, at various times, acting superintendent in the absence of superintendent Forbes Ross MacDonald.[1][2] Richard's father came from the South Devon village of Staverton and his mother, Harriett Georgina, née Hutchings, from Dittisham, also in South Devon. She died giving birth to Richard and his twin sister, Sarah Sparke Caunter.[3]

When about four years old, the two children were sent to live with their uncle, the Reverend Robert Sparke Hutchings of Dittisham Rectory. In 1811 their father drowned in the waters around Prince of Wales Island.[4][5] At age 16 Richard became an ensign in the 16th Lancers and was sent to India. He eventually sold out his commission and in 1820 obtained a scholarship at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, studying civil law and obtaining a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1829.[6] He was ordained a deacon and priest in London in 1824 and in the same year was Curate at Bradwell-on-Sea.[7] He spent 1824 to 1829 as Chaplain to the Governor of Mauritius, Sir Galbraith Lowry Cole (from 1828 Sir Charles Colville),[8] and also spent time in Cape Town.[9][10]

In 1831 Caunter was morning preacher at St George's, Hanover Square in London and also preached in St Paul's Cathedral.[11] At different times he held the curacy of the parishes of Forest Row, Frant and Pulborough in Sussex and Tunbridge Wells in Kent.[12] In 1840, the year he became Curate of Amberley in Sussex, he married Ann Harrison, which is commemorated in a stained-glass window in the parish church.[13] Caunter was subsequently Curate at Highclere, Hampshire (c. 1841-52), Hanwell, Oxfordshire and Drayton, Oxfordshire (1861-1871).[14][15] He died in Patcham in the city of Brighton, his last place of residence, and was buried there.[16][17]

Caunter was a member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.[18]

In 1832 Caunter published a volume combining a play and a collection of poetry, Attila, a Tragedy; and Other Poems (London, T. and W. Boone).[19] Although the book does not mention the author, he was advertised as its author shortly afterwards.[20] The play, written in iambic pentameter, describes an episode from the life of Attila, King of the Huns, as he prepares to lay siege to Constantinople. Caunter makes Bleda, Attila's brother, one of the king's principal foes. The poetry section includes several longer poems, among them a poem about Cupid and Psyche after Apuleius, and works written in India and aboard ship off the Cape of Good Hope.

A number of Caunter's sermons were published, including two sermons he preached during the passage from Mauritius to England in 1829[21] and a sermon preached on the opening of Trinity Chapel, Forest Row (London, T. and W. Boone, 1836).[22] He also wrote Bazaar ballad : Air "Povera nanna pensierosa." (1835), held in the British Library.[23]

Caunter's wife Ann Harrison was born in Masham, Yorkshire in 1813 and died in Warwick, Warwickshire in 1883. The couple had nine children. Their eldest son, Richard Hanley Caunter (1841-1922), was Keeper in the Printed Books Department at the British Museum and an expert in Spanish.[24][25]

Two older brothers of Richard McDonald Caunter were active in the London cultural scene in and around the 1830s. George Henry Caunter (1791-1843) was a music critic; John Hobart Caunter (c.1793-1851) was a clergyman and a writer of both fiction and non-fiction.