William Frend (social Reformer) - Later Life

Later Life

On leaving Cambridge he came to London. He maintained himself by teaching and writing, to supplement his continuing fellowship stipend. It was at Frend's house that William Wordsworth met William Godwin, on 27 February 1795. The company there that evening included George Dyer, Thomas Holcroft, James Losh, and John Tweddell. Frend was one of the orators in the mass meetings called by the London Corresponding Society in late 1795, with John Ashley, Matthew Brown, Richard Hodgson, John Gale Jones, John Richter, and John Thelwall. Also of this circle was Mary Hays; an attachment to Frend ended in an unsatisfactory fashion, Frend claiming that marriage was not possible on financial grounds; and she wrote autobiographically about the relationship in her first novel, Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796).

Frend was one of the group of reformers who supported at this time the early activities of the Literary Fund set up by David Williams. There he worked alongside Thomas Christie, Alexander Jardine, James Martin, and John Hurford Stone. Their views, however, did not have it all their own way.

In 1806 he took part in the formation of the Rock Life Assurance Company, to which he was appointed as actuary. He continued in radical activities, participating around 1810 in a fundraising committee, with Timothy Brown, John Cartwright, William Cobbett, and Robert Waithman, to support Gwyllym Lloyd Wardle.

A severe illness in 1826 compelled him to offer his resignation, which was accepted in 1827 when an annuity was given to him. His health subsequently recovered, and he resumed an active life. Frend and Joshua Milne, another actuary, were consulted by the statistician John Rickman about the 1831 census. In 1840 he was attacked by paralysis. He lingered with almost total loss of speech and motion, though mentally alert. He died at his house, Tavistock Square, London, on 21 February 1841.