Author: Dorset, Michael
Biography:
DORSET, Michael (1753-92: ancestry.co.uk)
He was a son of Mary and the Rev. Michael Dorset (or Dorsett), vicar of Walberton in West Sussex. His father was said to be very eccentric; he had studied at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and became MA in 1747. Dorset was baptised in Walberton on 10 Nov. 1753. He joined the army and is recorded as being a second lieutenant in the Royal Regiment of Artillery, 4th battalion, in 1772, and in the 3rd battalion in 1774. He was admitted to the Middle Temple as a law student on 18 Nov. 1776 but he seems not to have been called to the bar. In 1781 he was a captain in the Sussex regiment. Dorset married Catherine Ann Turner (q.v. as Dorset) on 2 June 1779 at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London. They had two children, Lucy Smith Dorset (b 1780) and Charles Ferguson Dorset (b 1782). The exact date of his death is not known but he was buried at St. Nicholas, Plumstead, Greenwich, on 19 June 1792. He had made his will on 2 May 1792 and left his estate to his wife and daughter; the will makes no mention of Charles, the son, and he may have predeceased his father. Dorset also published An Essay on Defensive War and a Constitutional Militia (1782). (ancestry.co.uk 30 July 2024; ODNB [Dorset, Catherine Ann] 30 July 2024; findmypast.co.uk 30 July 2024; CCEd 30 July 2024; ACAD) SR