Author: Abbot, Charles
Biography:
ABBOT, Charles (1761-1817: ODNB)
His surname is sometimes spelled Abbott. He and his twin sister, Charlotte, the children of Charles and Jane Abbot of Blandford, Dorset, were baptised on 31 Oct. 1762. No birth record has been located but his grave gives his date of birth as 24 Mar. 1761. He entered Winchester School in 1772 before studying at New College, Oxford (matric. 1779, BA 1783, MA 1797, BD and DD 1802). He was ordained in 1786 and became curate at Bedford St. Mary and Bedford St. Cuthbert. On 7 Nov. 1787 he married Sarah Harris of Chockenham, Worcs.; they had no children. In 1794 he became Vicar at Oakley, Bedfordshire, and in 1803 he was also appointed to Goldington. He was domestic chaplain to the Duke of Bedford and served as second master at Bedford Grammar School but was disappointed in being passed over for the post of headmaster. Abbot was a botanist and an early member of the Linnean Society; his Flora Bedfordienses was published in 1798 and his wife prepared his herbarium. He recorded the butterflies he found in Bedfordshire and discovered the Chequered Skipper in 1797. However he was duped by an unscrupulous dealer into thinking he had found other exotic species in his local area. Although the ODNB gives the date of his death at Goldington as 8 Sept. 1817, it was reported in the London Courier as occurring on 3 Sept. 1817. Sarah Abbot predeceased him and his will directed that he should be buried with her in the church at Great Malvern. His other publications include sermons and Verses Sacred to the Memory of Francis Duke of Bedford (1802) which, at nine pages, is too short to be included in this database. (ODNB 11 Apr. 2022; Michael Salmon, The Aurelian Legacy [2021]; T. F. Kirby, Annals of Winchester School [1892]; London Courier 5 Sept. 1817; ancestry.co.uk 11 Apr. 2022) SR