Charles Whitehead was an English poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, novelist, and dramatist.

Whitehead was born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, the eldest son of a wine merchant. His most memorable works, which met with popular favour were: The Solitary (1831), a poem, The Autobiography of Jack Ketch (1834), a novel, The Cavalier (1836), a play in blank verse, Richard Savage (1842, and perhaps his finest novel), and The Earl of Essex, a historical romance (1843).

Whitehead recommended Dickens for the writing of the letterpress for R. Seymour's drawings, which ultimately developed into The Pickwick Papers

The Pickwick Papers

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club is the first novel by Charles Dickens. After the publication, the widow of the illustrator Robert Seymour claimed that the idea for the novel was originally her husband's; however, in his preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens strenuously denied any...

.

Whitehead had problems with alcohol and decided to travel to Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 hoping for fresh start, arriving in 1857. He already was acquainted with Richard Henry Horne

Richard Henry Horne

Richard Hengist Horne was and English poet and critic most famous for his poem Orion.-Early life:...

, he befriended James Smith

James Smith (journalist)

James Smith was an English-born Australian journalist and encyclopedist.-Early life:Smith was born at Loose near Maidstone, Kent, England, son of James Smith, supervisor of inland revenue, and his wife Mary...

 and wrote a little for the local press. He applied for admission to the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum in February 1862 in vain, a few months later he was picked up exhausted in a street and taken to the Melbourne hospital, where he died on 5 July 1862 of hepatitis

Hepatitis

Hepatitis is a medical condition defined by the inflammation of the liver and characterized by the presence of inflammatory cells in the tissue of the organ. The name is from the Greek hepar , the root being hepat- , meaning liver, and suffix -itis, meaning "inflammation"...

 and bronchitis

Bronchitis

Acute bronchitis is an inflammation of the large bronchi in the lungs that is usually caused by viruses or bacteria and may last several days or weeks. Characteristic symptoms include cough, sputum production, and shortness of breath and wheezing related to the obstruction of the inflamed airways...

and was buried in a pauper's grave.