Derrick, Samuel (1724–69), writer, was born in Ireland, of a Co. Carlow family which had become impoverished; nothing is known of his parents. Apprenticed to a linen-draper, he found business uncongenial, and escaped to London in his twenties, briefly and very unsuccessfully appearing at the Haymarket theatre in ‘Jane Shore’. Afterwards, he made a poor enough living by writing bad verse, translating French literature, gambling, and accepting handouts from richer acquaintances. He was often without money to pay for a lodging.
In 1760 he met the young James Boswell and introduced him to the pleasures of the town, but by 1763 Boswell had come to regard him as ‘a little blackguard pimping dog’, and snubbed his former ‘governor’. Derrick was also known to Dr Johnson, who was uncharacteristically tolerant of his bombast and vanity. However, Johnson's bon mots at Derrick's expense have ensured for the Irishman a small immortality which his own writings would not have earned. In c.1763 he was appointed master of ceremonies in the fashionable spas of Bath and Tunbridge Wells. The numerous Irish patrons may have helped secure his appointment in Bath, where Derrick was regarded as a very disappointing successor to Beau Nash. He was ridiculed for his diminutive stature and lack of authority, being unable even to separate two ladies who resorted to hair-pulling in the ballroom. The extravagance and irregularity of his life also provoked contemporary criticism. He is said to have given the future astronomer royal, (Sir) William Herschel, a job as musician in the town's orchestra, but the actor David Garrick was his enemy, and other opponents, including the actor James Quin (qv), intrigued against him.
His death on 28 March 1769 preceded the publication of a book called Derrick's jests; Johnson reckoned that his Letters from Leverpoole . . . (1767) would have been thought pretty enough if someone else's name was appended, but other publications of this unfortunate poet were either undeserving or unsuccessful or both.