Henry Fielding was born in Somerset in 1707. Fielding formed his own company and was running the Little Theatre, Haymarket, when one of his satirical plays began to upset the government. The passing of the Theatrical Licensing Act in 1737 effectively ended Fielding's career as a playwright.
In 1739 Fielding turned to journalism and became editor of The Champion. He also began writing novels. Fielding was made a justice of the peace for Westminster and Middlesex in 1748. He campaigned against legal corruption and helped his half-brother, Sir John Fielding, establish the Bow Street Runners.
In 1749 Fielding's novel, The History of Tom Jones was published to public acclaim. Critics agree that it is one of the greatest comic novels in the English language. Fielding followed this success with another well received novel, Amelia (1751).
Fielding wasn’t in favour of the Act – which decreed that all plays being performed in public theatres in the UK must be read and passed by the Lord Chamberlain – but nevertheless played a key role in the formation of it. A series of stage satires penned by Fielding, mocking King George II and Robert Walpole, first de facto Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, led Walpole to push for theatre censorship. He was successful, and the Licensing Act came into force.
After his career writing satires for the stage was curtailed by the Licensing Act, Fielding resumed his work as a barrister and magistrate, and, with his younger half-brother John Fielding, he established the Bow Street Runners as a way of keeping order in London. The Runners – seen as forerunners to the modern-day police – were established in 1749, the same year that Fielding’s masterpiece, Tom Jones, was published – a huge picaresque novel detailing the adventures of its titular boy, a foundling.
What’s more, Sarah Fielding’s The Governess (1749) has a claim to being the first English novel written for children.
Upon reading Richardson’s excessively moralistic novel Pamela (subtitled ‘Virtue Rewarded’), Fielding turned to novel-writing, beginning with a work which parodied Pamela, titled Shamela. True to his satirical roots, Fielding’s novel was a ‘sham’ retelling of Richardson’s novel.
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