Edward Sharpham
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Edward Sharpham (baptised 1576 – 1608) was an English playwright and pamphleteer.
He was baptised on 22 July 1576, the third son of Richard Sharpham of Colehanger, a manor in the parish of East Allington. His father having died when Sharpham was five his mother married Alexander Hext, with whom she had three children. Having been widowed a second time in 1588, she subsequently married Charles Barnaby of Clement's Inn.[1]
Sharpham probably attended grammar school in Devon, possibly William Kemp's school in Plymouth. He was admitted to the Middle Temple on 9 October 1594.[1]
In 1592 Sharpham's mother began a lawsuit against a Thomas Fortescue, alleging he had murdered her first husband by poison and also used witchcraft to make her fall in love with him. Four years later Sharpham himself also sued Fortescue and another man, William Bastard, on a charge of having tampered with evidence relating to his mother's suit. He remained associated with the Middle Temple.[1]
On 22 April 1608, aged 31, Sharpham made his will. He died the next day, and was buried in St. Margaret's, Westminster.[1]
