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Dr. John B. Irving
John Beaufain Irving (September 28, 1800 - February 22, 1881) was an American physician, rice planter, journalist, writer and racetrack owner. His published works include The South Carolina Jockey ...view moreJohn Beaufain Irving (September 28, 1800 - February 22, 1881) was an American physician, rice planter, journalist, writer and racetrack owner. His published works include The South Carolina Jockey Club, A Day on Cooper River and An Amused Reader.
He was born in St. James Parish, Jamaica in 1800, the son of Jacob Aemilius Irving and Hannah Margaret Irving.
As a young boy he was sent from Jamaica to Charleston, South Carolina with his brothers to live with his grandfather, Thomas Corbett. His mother returned to Jamaica to live with his father. In 1809, he young John was sent to school in Liverpool, England, where he was placed at Rugby and then Cambridge, where he became friends with Thomas Babington Macaulay. Irving eventually returned to America to study medicine in Philadelphia and, following graduation, returned to Charleston, S.C. to practice.
Dr. Irving owned rice plantations in South Carolina, and wrote A Day on Cooper River (1842), a reminiscence of South Carolina plantation life. He sided with the South in the Civil War, and as a result lost everything he owned. When his wife Emma Maria Irving (1805-1867) and eldest son AEmilius Irving (1824-1873) died, Irving was left with his youngest son, John Beaufain Irving II (1825-1877), a portrait artist, who had married and was struggling financially with a young family of eight children to support.
Dr. Irving moved to New York at the age of 65, where he became salaried secretary and manager of Jerome Park, a horse-racing establishment. When he also lost his youngest son John in 1877, grief overcame Dr. Irving, and he died in poverty in 1881 at the age of 80.view less