Theophilus Essex

Theophilus Essex was born in 1738, on the 12th of August. His name day is the 8th of July. A naturally very shy man, not inclined to conversation and generally feeling ill-at-ease in even familiar social situations, let alone the unfamiliar, he strikes most he meets as laconic and straight-faced, with many finding his flat affect and thin, frowning mouth to be unsettling, if not intimidating. He is a very caring man, in private a passionate artist and devotee to all the arts. The youngest of four children, he was born to Gerasimus Essex, a mathematician at Cambridge University, and Ioanna Christopoulos . His two brothers, Damainos Essex and Socrates Essex, were each merchant sailors, and his sister, Febrona Bricksden, was a poet and essayist. Having completed a short stint at Cambridge, Theophilus went on to become the private secretary of Mr Charles Henry Greenwich, a consummate businessman who owned a great deal of land in the Colonies, and had shares in the EIC. Theophilus found Mr Greenwich - a plantation-owner, contented slaver, and a man generally inclined to the belief that personal riches were preferable to such measly considerations as the rights of man - to be an abominable man, but felt no easy way to exit his surface as both his brothers worked in merchant campaigns funded by Mr Greenwich, and Mr Greenwich was on friendly terms with his father. When Mr Greenwich declared he would be making his way to the Colonies, Theophilus declined to join him in making the move, and took a position instead with Henry Coffey, a man who Mr Greenwich had met very casually in passing, but whom Theophilus had researched in some great detail before making his application. In the coming years, Theophilus went from being Henry Coffey's personal secretary to being a good friend and confidante, and later, a lover. Henry turned Theophilus to vampirism in 1769, five years after Theophilus joined his service as secretary, and they have considered themselves to be wedded in matrimony ever since.