Author: Pott, Joseph Holden
Biography:
POTT, Joseph Holden (1758-1847: ODNB)
He was born on 27 Oct. 1758 and baptised on 22 November at St. Augustine’s, Watling Street, City of London, the seventh of eight children of Percival Pott, surgeon, and Sarah Cruttenden, who had married in 1746. He was educated at Eton and St. John’s College, Cambridge (matric. 1779, BA 1780, MA 1783). He entered the established church and was ordained deacon (1781) and priest (1782). Thereafter he held an array of church appointments: rector of Beesby-le-Marsh, Lincolnshire (1783-90), vicar of St. Olave Jewry with St. Martin’s Ironmonger Lane (1787-92), rector of Little Burstead, Essex (1797-1806), vicar of Northall, Middlesex (1806-22), vicar of St. Martins in the Fields (1812-24), vicar of Kensington (1824-42), and several others. He also held several prebendary positions: Lincoln (1785-1815), St. Paul’s (1822-47), Exeter (1826-47). He was Archdeacon of London (1813-42). He died on 16 Feb. 1847 at Woburn Place, Bloomsbury, and was buried at St. Mary Aldermary, Watling Street, City of London. He never married and left well over £10,000 to various nieces and nephews. His extensive library was sold off after his death. The poetry listed here consisted mostly of early odes and elegies, some written while he was still at Eton. His Essay on Landscape Painting (1782) made a minor contribution to eighteenth-century aesthetics. The GM obituary notice gives a fairly comprehensive list of his published sermons and other religious works which are no longer read. A novel, The Tour of Valentine (1786), was well received but soon forgotten. (ODNB 19 July 2023; DNB; CCEd 19 July 2023; Rivers, 2: 152; Watkins, 281-2; EN1, 387; LES 18 Feb. 1847; GM Aug. 1847, 210-11) AA