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Author: Gatty, Alfred

Biography:

GATTY, Alfred (1813-1903: ODNB)

He was born on 18 Apr. 1813 at 3 Angel Court, Throgmorton Street, City of London, and baptised on 23 Feb. 1814 at St. Bartholomew by the Exchange, City of London, the second surviving son of Robert Gatty, solicitor, and his second wife, Mary Ashton, who had married at Market Harborough, Leicestershire, in 1806. His father had also earlier married a Mary Ashton at Market Harborough in 1791. It seems likely the two wives were related. With his first wife, Robert Gatty had three children baptised at St. Antholin, Budge Row, London. With his second wife he also had three children, all baptised at St. Bartholomew’s by the Exchange, of whom Alfred was the youngest. He was educated at Temple Grove, East Sheen, Charterhouse (1825), and Eton (1829), and went up to Exeter College, Oxford (matric. 1831, BA 1836, MA 1839, DD 1860). He was ordained deacon (1837) and priest (1839) and was vicar of St. Mary’s, Ecclesfield, near Sheffield, from 1839 until his death, serving there for 63 years. He married Margaret Scott on 8 July 1839 at St. Giles-in-the Fields, Holborn, London. They went on to have ten children. She was an editor, landscape artist and author of children’s books. She died on 4 Oct. 1873. He then married Mary Helen Newman, the daughter of a Barnsley solicitor, on 1 Oct. 1884, at St. Margaret’s, Westminster. There was no further issue. She died in 1919. He died on 20 Jan. 1903 at Ecclesfield vicarage and was buried in the churchyard, leaving an estate of just under £1500. In addition to the work listed here, he published the usual array of sermons--Sermons (1846-8), Sermons for Wayfarers (1854), Twenty Plain Sermons (1858)--and Baptism Misunderstood(1849). He also had extensive antiquarian and local history interests. Two works may still be of interest to literary historians: The Poetical Character: Illustrated from the Works of A. Tennyson (1860), and A Key to Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” (1881). (ODNB [Alfred Gatty, Margaret Scott] 28 Feb. 2024; ancestry.co.uk 28 Feb. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 28 Feb. 2024; CCEd 28 Feb. 2024; John Martin, Bibliographical Catalogue of Privately Printed Books[1854], 438; LES 9 July 1839; ILN 18 Oct. 1873; Morning Post 3 Oct. 1884; Sheffield Daily Telegraph 6 Oct. 1873, 21 Jan. 1903) AA

 

 

Books written (1):

London: printed, but "not published," by Davison, Simmons, and Co., 1833