William Makepeace Thackera was an English novelist, author and illustrator, who was born in India. British writer, William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), was in kinship care as a child.

Thackeray was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal) to Richmond and Anne Thackeray and named after his paternal grandfather. Richmond Thackeray was doing well in his career at the time of William’s birth, but died just 4 years later. At the end of 1816, Anne Thackeray sent William to England. For 12 months, William’s maternal great-grandmother and maternal great-aunt cared for the child at Fareham, a small town between Portsmouth and Southampton in England. He went to school in Southampton.