Lear was born on 12 May 1812 at the family's house, Bowman's Lodge, in Holloway, which was near Highgate, a London suburb of prosperous families. Edward was the twentieth and youngest surviving of twenty-one children born to Jeremiah and Ann Skerrett Lear. From an established success in the family's fruit and sugar refining business, Jeremiah turned in midlife to stockbroking and had a downturn in his finances. The specific circumstances and extent of Jeremiah's debt and bankruptcy are not known, although it is clear that the effect on the family was serious. The house was rented, and some children left home. The oldest daughter, twenty-one year old Ann, was expected not to marry but to take over maternal and household duties in place of a mother who devoted herself to her husband and the family's financial crisis. Young Edward, too, was wholly given over to his sister Ann. After a time, the Lears resolved their money troubles, regained Bowman's Lodge, and lived there in reduced style for several years.
In her biography, Edward Lear: The Life of a Wanderer (1968), Vivien Noakes says that Edward was a "rather ugly, short-sighted, affectionate little boy," bewildered, hurt, and made unhappy by events in his young life.
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