Fielding, Henry

The English novelist and playwright Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, an estate in Somerset. His father was Colonel Edmund Fielding. Henry Fielding attended Eton College and later read law at Leiden, the Netherlands. He came to London in 1730 where he became a theatre director and playwright and later chief magistrate. In 1749, he helped form The Bow Street Runners, an early police force operating in London. He was also a journalist and editor of Tory journals, and in 1752, he launched his own satirical magazine, The Covent-Garden Journal. Fielding was married twice and had six children.