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Author: Peart, Joseph

Biography:

PEART, Joseph (1745-97: ancestry.com)

A Continuation of Hudibras in Two Cantos, written in the Time of the Unhappy Contest between Great Britain and North America, in 1777 and 1778 was published without an author’s name but the British Library copy identifies him in a ms note on the title-page as “Joseph Peart.” The author of this urbane poem had had a classical education and displays an assured knowledge of history and politics but was not a university graduate. One commentator speculates that he was a solicitor but no confirmation has been found in public records. He was the son of Edward Peart (1700-50) and his first wife Susanna Wray (1705-47), born in West Butterick, Lincolnshire, and baptised on 16 Nov. 1745 at Owston, Lincolnshire. His parents had married at Owston on 4 May 1727; both died when he was a small child and he and his three brothers were left in the care of their stepmother Frances (Wright) Peart. The family owned estates and slaves in Jamaica, which he eventually inherited. He did not marry. He died at his home in Jamaica, Spice Grove, in the parish of St. Elizabeth, some time after having made his last will on 18 July 1798 but before Oct. 1799. The will was proved in London on 20 Feb. 1806. After many specific bequests to the children, both legitimate and illegitimate, of his brothers and his half-sister, he left the bulk of his estate to his nephew John Peart, eldest son of his recently deceased brother Robert Peart (d Jan. 1797). (ancestry.com 9 Sept. 2023; findmypast.com 9 Sept. 2023; LBS; jamaicanfamilysearch.com; NA PROB-11-1438-195; Bruce Ingham Granger, “Hudibras in the American Revolution,” American Literature 27: 4 [1956], 499-508)

 

Other Names:

  • J. Peart
 

Books written (1):