Richard Harris Barham was born in Canterbury, Kent, on 6 December 1788. His father died in 1795, and Barham inherited the manor of Tappington Wood -- which, as he never tired of telling people, was pronounced 'Tapton.' He was brought up here, and was fascinated by the old Kentish stories his Nurse told him; many such as The Hand of Glory, Grey Dolphin, The Ghost and The Old Woman Clothed In Grey he later versified, and included in the work for which he is famous, The Ingoldsby Legends. In later life, Barham peopled Tappington with the fictional Ingoldsby family, their friends and servants, from whom Thomas Ingoldsby heard his Legends.

Richard was sent to Saint Paul's School, London, where he met his life-long friend Richard Bentley; his schooldays seem to have been happy, and he was a popular boy. At 19, in 1807, he entered Brazenose College, Oxford. Being young, rich, high-spirited and rather lazy, he fell in with a rich and riotous crowd. He spent a somewhat dissipated few years, and achieved little academic distinction; being chiefly famous for his startling ability to produce rhymes extempore. At the same time, he had a taste for history, especially genealogy, and for ancient legends, which he would read all night in obscure volumes from the College Library.

The story is told of him that, during these College days, his Tutor called him in to ask why he attended so infrequently at Chapel -- a serious matter, when admission to University depended on one's being a member of the Church of England. He replied that it was too late for him. On the Tutor protesting that it was at seven o'clock in the morning, Barham replied that he could easily stay up until four or five, but asking him to stay up till eight was out of the question.

He left Oxford and became articled to a solicitor; but a severe illness intervened, and he decided instead to train for holy orders. His first curacy was in Ashford, Kent; then he moved to Westwell, a few miles away. In 1814 he married Caroline Smart, daughter of a Captain of Engineers. Soon after this he was presented to the two livings of Snargate and Warehorn, in Kent, which provided him with a competence, but it was clear he was not marked out for high office in the Church. On the other hand, life in these parishes, on the edge of the notorious Romney Marsh, could hardly be described as dull: it was a hotbed of smuggling, and it's clear that Barham turned a blind eye to it, and on occasions may even helped the 'Gentlemen' out. A large consignment of smuggled tobacco was found in the belfry of Snargate Church; it was rumoured that even more was hidden under the curate's table.

Barham's married life seems to have been happy, if distant; Caroline Barham was up with the lark each morning, and abed early each night, whereas her husband would only come alive around midnight: he would still sit up all night, reading and writing, and sleep well into the afternoon. A great lover of cats, it was common to find him deeply engrossed in his work of composition with one or more felines asleep on his head or neck, or both.

Around 1820, Barham broke his leg falling from a horse; during his enforced idleness he scratched out a novel, Baldwin, which according to his son 'fell stillborn from the Minerva Press, under the management of the matrons of that establishment.' Illness did him more than one good turn. In 1821 one of his children fell ill -- significantly, he doesn't mention which one -- and Barham went to London to consult the great physician Abernethy. He met an old friend, quite by chance, who mentioned that a minor canonry was coming up at Saint Paul's; Barham applied and was elected, adding a useful extra salary to his stipends. The connection with London brought him to wider notice, and he was offered small jobs writing for Gorton's Biographical Dictionary, as well as for Blackwood's, The Globe, and John Bull. In 1824, he was appointed priest-in-ordinary to the Chapel Royal in Windsor Castle -- a sinecure, despite its high-sounding title -- and rector of Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint Gregory by Saint Paul, London. He would appear to have been a pleasant, dutiful vicar, more interested in visiting his parishioners than making a name for himself as a fashionable preacher.

Barham continued in this way for the rest of his life; he never took much interest in politics, and tried for promotion to archdeacon or bishop. His natural laziness doubtless held him back; but he had a wonderful gift for friendship, that filled in what he might otherwise have lacked. A staunch, natural Tory, he nevertheless became very close and very cordial with the Rev. Sidney Smith, another canon of Saint Paul's, and the leading Liberal wit of his day. His circle of friends included Theodore Hook, Walter Scott and Dr. Hughes, father of Tom Hughes. At the same time, his parish work provide him with many of the anecdotes and experiences he later used in his Ingoldsby Legends. The Jackdaw of Rheims started life as a tame magpie, who stole some pickled cockles from one of Barham's parishioners, and received for his pains a ladle-full of boiling fat on his head. More surprisingly, according to his son:

'The Singular Passage in the Life of the late Doctor Harris, though drawing not a little on the reader's faith, certainly so far originated in fact that the strange details were communicated to Mr. Barham by a young lady on her sick-bed, and who herself was so impressed with their truth, as to urge most strongly the apprehension of the young man of whose horrible arts she believed herself to be the victim. The delusion only terminated with her life. It is worthy of remark that the very gentleman to whom she referred, and who was also well-known to Mr. Barham, was shortly afterwards taken into custody on the charge of perpetrating a robbery at one of the theatres. His identity was sworn to most positively by the prosecutrix, but an alibi was so irrefragably established as to place his innocence beyond suspicion. This story, though printed in the first series of The Ingoldsby Legends, appeared originally in Blackwood's, and has, indeed, little in common with the productions with which it is at present associated.'

The Ingoldsby Legends had their origin in 1837, when Barham's old school-friend, Richard Bentley, began his Miscellany. Barham agreed to write something for the first issue; he duly presented the Spectre of Tappington to the new editor, Charles Dickens. It was agreed that he use the pen-name 'Thomas Ingoldsby,' and soon this alias took on a life of his own; the characters he had introduced in the Spectre reappeared as sources for later stories, many of which supposedly happened within the Ingoldsby family itself.