September 1812. For the years 1827 and 1831 he was Vice-President. As his interest in education grew, he supported Whitbread's move for a proper system of state education and Henry Brougham's drive for a fully-fledged city university. Sharp's initiative precedes that of a better known contemporary, George Birkbeck, also from a Dissenter background, whose Mechanics' Institutes developed in Glasgow, London and elsewhere from the 1820s onwards. Many of the founders of the London Institution later joined Thomas Campbell and Brougham in establishing a new University of London. Final years and death Towards the end of his life Sharp liked to spend the winter months at his house in Higher Terrace, Torquay. He had suffered all his life with a cough and a bad chest and Torquay was noted for both its health-giving air and Italianate landscape, but in 1834 the winter was particularly severe and as Sharp succumbed he resolved that he would die in his beloved London. He set off for the city with his family and servants but only got as far as Dorchester before expiring at the coaching inn there. Fearful that a nephew might obtain and subvert his will, it is said that 70-year-old George Philips, in a final act of kindness, set off on his horse "Canon", and rode through the night as fast as he could to ensure that this did not occur. Personal life Sharp never married, but in about 1812 he adopted an infant, Maria Kinnaird, who had been orphaned by a catastrophic volcano eruption in the West Indies. Maria, as a teenager, knew William Wordsworth's daughter, Dora, very well and later led an interesting and colourful life in London society. Macaulay and Romilly (son of Samuel Romilly) were among many eligible young men who were said to be enamoured of Maria, but in 1835 she married Thomas Drummond, who later became Under-Secretary for Ireland. Published work Sharp's only book was Letters and Essays in Prose and Verse (1834). The Quarterly Review described it as remarkable for "wisdom, wit, knowledge of the world and sound criticism". Several editions were published, including an American edition. Sharp considered writing a history of American independence and wrote to his friends, John Adams and John Quincy Adams about this and other matters. He also considered writing a tourist's guide to Europe after becoming so familiar with continental travel that he was once called "the Thomas Cook