George William Meadley

George William Meadley (1774–1818) was an English merchant, known as a biographer.

Life Meadley was born at Sunderland, County Durham, on 1 January 1774, an only son; his father died in 1775, and his mother soon afterwards moved with her five children to the adjoining town of Bishop Wearmouth. In 1783 he was placed at the grammar school of Witton-le-Wear, under John Farrer. At the end of 1788 he was apprenticed to Thomas Chipchase, a banker and general dealer at Durham, where Meadley became a liberal in politics. Leaving Durham in 1793 he lived at home, learning Italian, improving his French, and founding a subscription library at Sunderland (1795) with the help of Ferrer, by then rector of Sunderland. In March 1795 he made the acquaintance of William Paley, the rector of Bishop Wearmouth.

During 1796 Meadley was on a business voyage to the Levant. He stayed at Naples, Smyrna and Constantinople, and collected a library of books. This was during the French Revolutionary Wars, and he fell into the hands of the French on his return voyage, spending some time as a prisoner in Spain. Learning German, he went on further mercantile voyages to Danzig (1801) and to Hamburg (1803), travelling further on foot with a friend through northern Germany. Retiring then from trade, he began to write.