John Charles Bristed son of the Revnd Mr Nathaniel & Hester (baptismal record)
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In 1819 the Rev. John Charles Bristed received £300 of Old South Sea annuities from his late mother's Will.
Writing his Will in December 1819, James Redit of St. Andrew Holborn, gent., bequeathed to his brother-in-law the Reverend John Charles Bristed his picture of the Virgin and Child, said to be painted by Titian, along with any of his old china he chooses.
In 1832 John Charles Bristed was co-executor of the Will of his sister Jane Bristed of Dorchester, spinster.
Writing his Will in October 1835, Benjamin Bowring of Dorchester, gent., bequeathed £200 to his brother-in-law Charles Bristed.
At the time of the 1851 England Census John Charles Bristed, aged 76, born in Sherborne Dorset, widower [sic], clergyman of the Church of England, was living in High East Street, Dorchester All Saints, Dorset.
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John Charles Bristed of Dorchester died aged 85 years (burial record).
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DE MORTUIS.
In our obituary, on Thursday last, stood this record:—"October 29, at his house, Dorchester, the Rev. John Charles Bristed, aged 85." Charles Bristed (as his contemporaries called him) was born 6th June, 1774, at the King's School, Sherborne ; his father, Rev. Nathaniel Bristed, M.A., having been elected Head Master, 1766, held this school till 1789, when he retired to the Rectory of Bishop's Caundle, and was succeeded by Rev. John Cutler, M.A., the Charter of King Edward's foundation expressly requiring this degree, from Oxford or Cambridge. His father's family was a Sussex one ; but his mother, a second wife, was Hester, daughter of Dr. Foot, of Sherborne, a descendant of the Horseys, of Melcombe. Young Bristed was educated by his father, at Caundle, and, when he was of sufficient age, proceeded from thence to Emanuel College, Cambridge, where he became B.A. in 1796, and M.A. in 1799. During his residence in that university, he applied himself more diligently to collegiate studies than was usual with young men of that day, and spent much of his leisure time in searching libraries, and dipping into old books and antiquarian records. Having taken the usual degrees he returned home to Dorsetshire, and was shortly afterwards ordained as Curate of Sherborne (his father holding the vicarage of that town, together with the rectory of Caundle Bishop) by the Bishop of Bristol, as both these livings were within the jurisdiction of the See of Bristol, until the New Distribution of Dioceses had been created by an Act of Parliament, which attached the county of Dorset to the See of Salisbury. His stay at Sherborne was only temporary ; for not long after he took Priest's Orders. In one or more pedestrian excursions he had visited the Lake district of the North of England, and becoming attached to that country he took up his residence at Grange, near Cartmel, in Lancashire, in the year 1800, and remained there for 22 years. In the year 1801 he was nominated by Lord George Cavendish, afterwards Earl of Burlington, to the perpetual curacy of Flookborough, in the parish of Cartmel, near to Hooker Hall, the seat of that branch of the Cavendishes ; and in the year 1812, through the same influence, was presented by the Duke of Devonshire to the valuable rectory of Brindle, near Preston. Both these livings were situated in Lancashire, and in the patronage of the Cavendish family, fast friends of Charles Bristed, through an intimacy he had, from similarity of pursuits, formed at Cambridge. This appointment was the more honourable to both parties that Mr. Bristed was entirely opposed in political opinions to the Cavendishes. In the year 1814 he married Charlotte, fourth daughter of John Brooks, Esq., of Anstrop Lodge, Yorkshire, who survives him. To the great regret of the Cavendishes, and many other friends, Mr. Bristed, after 22 years residence, determined to give up his preferments in the North, in consequence of his health requiring a milder climate. The Bishop of Chester would have granted him a licence of non-residence (not unusual in those times), but he gratefully declined the offer, feeling that the tithes of the parish did not rightfully belong to the priest, unless he personally fulfilled the duties of his office. He therefore resigned his livings, about the year 1825, and came down to the south of Devon—residing first in the neighbourhood of Exeter and Torquay, assisting in the duties of the churches and parishes near which he resided, and undertaking for some time an evening lectureship at Newton Abbott, but shortly afterwards, about 1830, he removed to Dorchester to reside with his unmarried sister, who as well as his other surviving sister, Mrs. Bowring, had for some years lived here ; and here, or at Monkton, an adjoining parish, where he officiated as curate till 1843, he continued to reside up to the time of his decease. The distinctive features of Mr. Bristed's character were strongly marked in the conduct of his long life. He was a man of retired habits, but with fixed opinions, preferring silent meditation in his study, or quiet amusement in his garden, to the more stirring arena of public business. A Conservative both in politics and religion he was always on the side of order in cases of popular excitement, such as the riots after the elections in 1831-2, which led to the destruction of agricultural machinery, rick-burning, and other outrages of the labouring classes ; for though always a stickler for the poor, and anxious that every man should have right and justice, he firmly set his face against "strikes" and the violence of a mistaken mob to enforce their demands for higher wages, or for an increase of political privileges. The principles of Mr. Bristed were equally Conservative on religious questions—being what Dr. Kennedy describes in his five shades of Theological Parties—moderate High Church—a party (whose type is Bishop Wilson, of Sodor and Man) amply represented in the Church of England, from the Reformation, and still the most numerous and influential party in steadily supporting orthodoxy and ecclesiastical authority. For anything ulta, whether High or Low, he felt great antipathy ; so that his remarks on priggism, either in the pulpit or on the platform, smacked, occasionally, of an acerbity that was withering to the pretensions of any young bumptious divine, fast verging on Rome, or fresh and hot from Geneva. Nor did he give a less decisive reception to any well-meaning, self-appointed missionary, who intruded himself into his study to beg subscriptions. For it was his custom to support the chartered Church Societies, under the direction of the bench of Bishops, as well as expressly to uphold the clerical authorities of the parish where he was residing, and that, too, liberally, as is well known by the inhabitants of Dorchester, who can also testify that, in his case, the hand of charity was constantly opened to our public institutions for relieving sickness or want of any kind among the poor, while his private charity to individuals was without stint and without ostentation. Such was Charles Bristed, now gone to his Christian rest. full of years, rich in works of charity and love, and with the respect and esteem of all his neighbours. Among the few old friends who yet survive him, no one valued his character more thoroughly than the writer of these lines. It was his good fortune to have enjoyed, for many long years, an intercourse with Mr. Bristed, by friendly and hospitable visits, and to have benefitted, on such occasions, from his varied information and the soundness of his remarks on people and things of all kinds,—tenues grandia, grand or mean, from a duke to a dairy-maid ; from the hyssop that groweth out of the wall, to the cedar in Lebanon. Indeed, so universal was his knowledge, that the pithy summary of Johnson's epitaph on Goldsmith would be fairly applicable to Charles Bristed, nihil quod non tetigit ; and of what he handled, nihil quod non ornavit ; for, in a flow of good Saxon English (of which he was fond), he clearly and accurately described his view of any question mooted, and so enforced by argument the opinions he gave, that no visitors (especially the younger clergy of his acquaintance), left the house without being improved as well as delighted with his conversation. Nor was his table-talk less varied than the more serious colloquies in his study. He had a fund of anecdotes collected during a long life, and, from extensive reading, such an intimate practical knowledge de omnibus rebus cum quibusdam aliis, such an insight into men and manners, more particularly in Dorsetshire, that you might easily fancy him to have been the amanuensis of Hutchins during the 20 years he was collecting materials for the antiquities of our county history, from valuable records and MSS., in public offices and private libraries, with views of the seats of nobility and gentry, together with a copy of "Domesday Book." But, what is most to be lamented, all this rich stores of varied knowledge must die with him, for he has left only very few scattered notes and papers from which any part of his local knowledge, from fourscore years' experience, might be embodied for public information. Fourscore years! A period including the whole of the present century, when, from the extraordinary changes in men and things, a comparison of past short-comings, by such an observer as Bristed, with the fabulous progress of civilisation in 1859, would afford the soundest evidence of social improvement ; though it might give, at the same time, a seasonal check to our pride, and national vanity. Non omne quod fulget est aurum. Not all the glittering ore from modern diggings proves to be bullion. Nor are the master-spirits of our day the only heroes that ever strutted on the world stage.
Vixêre fortes ante Agamemnona multi.
"They were antients in the earth, and in the morning of the times,"
we, an upstart generation, standing on the giant's shoulders, boast that we see further than the giant.
Antiquitas seculi juventus mundi.
Dorset County Chronicle and Somersetshire Gazette, Supplement, 10 Nov 1859, pp. 290-1
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The Will of the Reverend John Charles Bristed late of Dorchester in the County of Dorset, Clerk, deceased, who died 29 October 1859 at Dorchester aforesaid, was proved 12 December at the Principal Registry by the oath of Robert Philipson Barrow of 65 Old Broad-street in the City of London, wine merchant, the sole executor. Effects under £4,000. 3
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