William Henry Ireland

William Henry Ireland 1777-1835, English forger of Shakespearean documents and manuscripts. Besides forging deeds and signatures relating to Shakespeare, Ireland fabricated two plays, Vortigern and Rowena (1796) and Henry II (both pub. 1799), as the works of Shakespeare. Edmond Malone , however, exposed him, and Ireland later acknowledged the hoax.

Ireland, William Henry (1775–1835), brilliant but eccentric Englishman, who at the age of 19 forged a number of legal and personal papers purporting to relate to Shakespeare which for a time deceived even the experts. He persuaded Sheridan to put on at Drury Lane, in 1796, a forged play, Vortigern and Rowena. Although John Philip Kemble and Mrs Jordan played the title-roles it failed, thus preventing Ireland from bringing forward further forgeries, of which Henry II was already written and William the Conqueror nearly completed. All Ireland's forgeries were published by his father, a dealer in prints and rare books who never ceased to believe in them, saying his son was too stupid to have composed them. They were exposed and Ireland was forced to confess. He spent the rest of his life in ignominious retirement, doing nothing but hack work.

Ireland, William Henry (1777–1835), is remembered chiefly as a forger of Shakespeare manuscripts. When working in a lawyer's office he had easy access to old parchment, deeds, and antiquated forms of writing. An exhibition of his forgeries of poems and deeds wholly deceived the general public, and Boswell kissed the parchments. A facsimile edition of the ‘works’ was published in 1795, and other works, including the plays Vortigern and Rowena and Henry II, appeared. Ireland subsequently admitted to the forgeries. He published two volumes of poems, The Fisher Boy (1808) and The Sailor Boy (1809); Scribbleomania (1815), is a collection of descriptions of his contemporaries.