John Timbs (17 August 1801 – 6 March 1875) was a British writer and antiquary. Some of his work was published under the pseudonym of Horace Welby.
Biography
Timbs was born in 1801 in Clerkenwell, London. He was educated at a private school at Hemel Hempstead. In his sixteenth year he was apprenticed to a druggist and printer at Dorking. He had early shown literary capacity, and when nineteen began to write for the Monthly Magazine. A year later he became secretary to Sir Richard Phillips, its proprietor, and permanently adopted literature as a profession.
He was successively editor of the Mirror of Literature, the Harlequin, The Literary World, and sub-editor of the Illustrated London News. He was later to become the third editor of the ILN.
He was also founder and first editor of Year-Book of Science and Art. His published works amounted to more than one hundred and fifty volumes. In 1834 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
Timbs died on 6 March 1875 and is buried in the churchyard of St Peter and St Paul, Edenbridge, Kent.
