Jacob Sarratt

[John Upham]

During lockdown I cobbled together a modest piece on Jacob Sharratt

https://britishchessnews.com/2020/11/06 ... 6-xi-1819/

I was unable (at the time) to unearth a reliable date of birth.

Those of you with multiple sources at your finger tips might be able to help?

John

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Bill Wall mentioned on http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/articles/Sarratt.htm that Hazlitt was critical of Sarratt, so I had to find it:

Sarratt, the chess-player, was an extraordinary man. He had the same tenacious, epileptic faculty in other things that he had at chess, and could no more get any other ideas out of his mind than he could those of the figures on the board. He was a great reader, but had not the least taste. Indeed the violence of his memory tyrannised over and destroyed all power of selection. He could repeat [all] Ossian by heart, without knowing the best passage from the worst; and did not perceive he was tiring you to death by giving an account of the breed, education, and manners of fighting-dogs for hours together. The sense of reality quite superseded the distinction between the pleasurable and the painful. He was altogether a mechanical philosopher.

(see http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essay ... eHouse.htm)

[John Upham]

Bill Wall mentioned on http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/articles/Sarratt.htm that Hazlitt was critical of Sarratt, so I had to find it:

Sarratt, the chess-player, was an extraordinary man. He had the same tenacious, epileptic faculty in other things that he had at chess, and could no more get any other ideas out of his mind than he could those of the figures on the board. He was a great reader, but had not the least taste. Indeed the violence of his memory tyrannised over and destroyed all power of selection. He could repeat [all] Ossian by heart, without knowing the best passage from the worst; and did not perceive he was tiring you to death by giving an account of the breed, education, and manners of fighting-dogs for hours together. The sense of reality quite superseded the distinction between the pleasurable and the painful. He was altogether a mechanical philosopher.

(see http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essay ... eHouse.htm)

Thanks for that: most interesting.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Nice bit of history.

Spotted a typo in your article, John: "Surratt" appears six times instead of "Sarratt".

Some more quotes from the piece that Jon found:

http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essay ... eHouse.htm

Poor and faint are my sketches compared to his! It was like looking into a camera obscura -- you saw faces shining and speaking -- the smoke curled, the lights dazzled, the oak wainscotting took a higher polish -- there was old Sarratt, tall and gaunt, with his couplet from Pope and case at Nisi Prius, Mounsey eyeing the ventilator and lying perdu for a moral, and Hume and Ayrton taking another friendly finishing glass! -- These and many more windfalls of character he gave us in thought, word, and action.

He was once sitting where Sarratt was playing a game at chess without seeing the board

[i.e. blindfold chess]

Sarratt, who was a man of various accomplishments (among others one of the Fancy), afterwards bared his arm to convince us of his muscular strength

Does anyone know what "one of the Fancy" means?

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Does anyone know what "one of the Fancy" means?

The Fancy were the aristocrats who followed, sponsored and bet on bare knuckle fighting. So saying that Sarratt was "one of the Fancy" probably means he was a bare knuckle fighter himself, rather than one of the aristocrats.

[John Upham]

Thanks for the correction CK.

I assume that JHS would, in these modern times, have been an owner of several American XL Bully dogs for his amusement.

Something else that amused me at the time was the phrase:

He was regarded as a very affable fellow and very well-read but with limited taste

I can't help feeling that this is going to apply to very many persons.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Some 19th century references say that Sarratt died in 1821 rather than 1819. I found a burial for a Jacob Charles Sarratt, aged 43, on the 16th November, 1819.

[Richard James]

We have a marriage record for 30 December 1804, where Sarratt married (Elizabeth) Camilla Dufour, a celebrated singer and writer, at St Leonard's Church, Shoreditch.

Sarratt2.jpg (62.75 KiB) Viewed 981 times

You'll see that he was a widower and Camilla's Wikipedia entry informs us that she inherited two step-children.

Sarratt's death was widely reported in the press in November 1819.

This is from the General Evening Post 11 November 1819

Sarratt1.jpg (27.81 KiB) Viewed 981 times

The year of birth generally given (1772) must come from these reports stating that he was in his 47th year. I haven't yet been able to find any baptismal records, or any records of his first marriage.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Thanks Richard. That newspaper report confirms that the 6th November, 1819, death date is correct.

Ancestry offers this as a record of his first marriage in 1790:
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/ ... 0534-00035

as image:
https://bashify.io/i/nXp3fr_jacobsarrat ... riage_1790

[Richard James]

Sarratt3a.jpg (14.09 KiB) Viewed 971 times

Sarratt3.jpg (45.25 KiB) Viewed 971 times

Here we have an extract from the Fleet Prison discharge book. Curiously, the date of discharge appears to be earlier that the date from when he was detained.

One of the names here is that of Abraham Samuda, a Jewish merchant and chess player, who was the dedicatee of Sarratt on Chess.

Sarratt also appears in various records of the United Grand Lodge of England Freemason membership registers, from 1794 onwards.

[Richard James]

Thanks Richard. That newspaper report confirms that the 6th November, 1819, death date is correct.

Ancestry offers this as a record of his first marriage in 1790:
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/ ... 0534-00035

as image:
https://bashify.io/i/nXp3fr_jacobsarrat ... riage_1790

Thanks Jon. I'd just discovered this as well - in Jersey.

Their two children may have been Mary Ann Louisa and Susan Catherine.

The death record from 1819 gives his age as 43, rather than being in his 47th year.

Sarratt4.jpg (34.87 KiB) Viewed 970 times

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

The death record from 1819 gives his age as 43, rather than being in his 47th year.
Sarratt4.jpg

Yes, I mentioned that burial record earlier. The middle name is wrong as well. Is a burial ten days after the death normal for that period? I know it was winter, but even so. I did search on ancestry and others for a Jacob Charles Sarratt, born around 1776, but without any success. It seems unlikely that two people called Jacob Sarratt died in London within a few weeks of each other.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Just to confuse matters further, this page implies that the Jacob Sarrett who married in 1790 was a different one to the chess player:
https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~prsjr/g ... /alan1.htm

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Unless you know how common a surname is, and whether there was a particular concentration of people with that surname, it is difficult to tell how likely it is that two people with the same name died in a large conurbation like London within a few weeks of each other. There were presumably a lot of Jacobs Sarrats in France, one of whom might have been in London and died. I have had similar problems with names that may appear uncommon in the UK or other English-speaking countries, but are very common in other countries.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Though I see now that the French name is spelt differently, but that it is a surprisingly common name in the UK.

Heartily wielding the mighty family motto of "Hope and Justice!" through the gathering mists of time, the proud and noble Sarratt surname strides boldly forth from the Burgundy region of east-central France.

Original spelling something like SAROT.