William George Thorpe (1828-1903)

William George Thorpe was born in 1828, son of George Thorpe and Mary Renfry. He practised as a barrister at the Middle Temple in London, and wrote 2 books containing historical anecdotes about the Middle Temple. He was a great admirer of Shakespeare (he even owned a first folio edition of the plays) and had “long fretted under the little information available as to its author”. In 1897 he wrote and published a book arguing for a secret and somewhat dubious business arrangement between Shakespeare and Francis Bacon. Thorpe died in Wandsworth, South London, in 1903.