Author: Petyt, Silvester
Biography:
PETYT, Silvester (1787-1846: ancestry.com)
His name is a relatively common one in North Yorkshire but this author was most probably a Londoner, perhaps the son of Hannah and John Petyt baptised at St. George’s, Bloomsbury on 3 Aug. 1787. (The 1841 Census gives a birthdate of 1791 but the death record supports 1787.) He undoubtedly had connections to Yorkshire: a century earlier, the brothers Sylvester and William Petyt, of a landowning family and born near Bolton Abbey, had been active in legal circles and politics in London, where Sylvester became Principal of Barnard’s Inn. In 1813 Silvester Petyt was granted the Freedom of the City as a member of the Company of Shipwrights: his occupation was ship broker. Joanna of Richmond—a Yorkshire theme—had a frosty reception from at least one reviewer in 1825 but there is a copy at the Guildhall Library. Petyt was imprisoned in the Fleet for debt for a time; he was discharged as insolvent on 13 Feb. 1833, his occupation then being given as “accountant” with the address “late of 5 Lloyd Square, Pentonville.” Soon after, he married Lydia Druit on 28 Mar. 1833 at St. Pancras Old Church. In 1841 they were living in Upper Fountain Place, Finsbury, he being described as a clerk. She died in 1845 and was buried on 12 Mar. at St. Pancras Parish Chapel, Camden. He survived her by a year and was buried--as Silvester Pettyt--at St. Luke's, Finsbury, on 14 Apr. 1846. (ancestry.com 27 Sept. 2023; findmypast.com 27 Sept. 2023; ODNB [William Petyt] 27 Sept. 2023; Monthly Magazine 60 [1825], 62; GRO) HJ