Sir Henry Dudley, 1st Baronet

"[5] He wrote plays and was a close friend of both the actor David Garrick and the artist Thomas Gainsborough, who twice painted his portrait.

[10] After meeting James Townley and being influenced by his farce High Life Below Stairs[11] Bate Dudley started writing scripts for comic operas.

Following his The Rival Candidates, his libretto for The Flitch of Bacon (1778) was the first of his collaboration with the composer William Shield, whom he assisted in bringing to prominence.

[3][12] For a time, between 1804 and 1812, Bate Dudley moved from Essex to Ireland due to financial difficulties and took up a rectory in Kilscoran and Kilglass.

It had its roots in discontent over the enclosure of the fenlands, but the high price of bread, poor pay of agricultural workers, and unemployment of soldiers returning from the Napoleonic wars were also factors.