Author: Sargent, John
Biography:
SARGENT, John (1749-1831: ancestry.co.uk)
He was probably born at Halstead Place, Kent, and was baptised on 5 Feb. 1749 at St. Nicholas, Deptford, Kent, the second son of John Sargent (1714-91), merchant, of Bloomsbury Square, London, and Halstead, Kent, and his wife Rosamund Chambers, who had married in Derbyshire in 1747. His father, originally a draper, was sometime MP, Director of the Bank of England 1753-67, and Storekeeper of the King’s Yard, Deptford. The younger John Sargent was educated at Eton (1760-7), St. John’s College, Cambridge (matric. 1767) and Lincoln’s Inn (admitted 1770). He was Director of the Bank of England 1778-9. He then entered Parliament and was MP for Seaford, Cinque Ports, Kent (1790-3); for Queenborough, East London (1794-1802); and for Bodmin, Cornwall (1802-6). He also held positions in the government: Clerk of the Ordnance (1793-1802) and Joint Secretary to the Treasury (1802-4). He was Commissioner of Audit 1806-21. He married Charlotte Bettsworth, an heiress, on 21 Dec. 1778 at St. Peter’s Woolavington (now East Lavington), Sussex. They went on to have ten children. He died on 9 Sept. 1831 and was buried on 15 Sept. at Woolavington. His work listed here treats of prisoners in mines—a theme that would later be more fully developed by other Romantics such as Novalis. The second edition added two odes, “The Vision of Stonehenge” and “Mary Queen of Scots.” (ancestry.co.uk 24 May 2022; Hampshire Chronicle 28 Dec. 1778; London Courier 12 Sept. 1831; GM Sept. 1831, 285; ODNB [son] 24 May 2022; English Spenserians; historyofparliamentonline.org. [father and son]) AA