Author: Elliot, Nathaniel
Biography:
ELLIOT, Nathaniel (1733-99: ancestry.co.uk)
There appears to be no baptism in an Oxfordshire parish or in the most likely neighbouring counties of Berkshire and Northamptonshire. Given that from 1759 to 1799 (the dates of his marriage and death), he was resident in Oxford, it seems likely he was local. It is, however, possible that he was the Nathaniel Elliot, son of Daniel and Elizabeth Elliott, baptised on 26 Dec. 1733, at Wendon Lofts, Essex, but there is nothing to corroborate this. Nothing is known of his early life until his marriage to Grace Green on 24 Sept. 1759 at St. Peter le Bailey, Oxford, where they also baptised a son and two daughters between 1760 and 1764. He was at various times shoemaker, schoolmaster, auctioneer, coroner, chapman, dealer, and overseer of the poor, and was recorded as living at New Inn Hall Street, Oxford. In addition to the work listed here, he published The Vestry (1767) and An Ode to Charity (1770). He planned to publish “Poems, on Various Occasions” by subscription and it was regularly advertised in the Oxford Journal 1780-81 but does not seem to have appeared. Between 1782 and 1785, he was involved in bankruptcy proceedings. He was buried at St. Peter le Bailey, Oxford, on 8 Apr. 1799, aged 66. Grace Elliot was also buried there, on 27 Mar. 1803, aged 74. Someone who had stayed with him at his house in 1793 remembered him as “a great oddity . . . lively, facetious, and fond of quoting Shakespeare” (N&Q). (ancestry.co.uk 24 Apr. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 24 Apr. 2022; OJ 3 June 1780, 6 Apr. 1799; N&Q 4 July 1857, 17; Alan Simpson, OFHS) AA