Sir Brooke Boothby, 6th Baronet

Sir Brooke Boothby
Print by John Raphael Smith after Reynolds
Born3 June 1744[1]
Ashbourne, Derbyshire,[2] England, Great Britain
Died23 January 1824[1]
Boulogne, Paris, France
Burial placeSt. Oswald's, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, England
EducationSt John's College, Cambridge
Occupation(s)Translator, poet, landowner
Title6th Baronet Boothby, of Broadlow Ash
SpouseSusanna Bristoe
ChildrenPenelope
Parent(s)Sir Brooke Boothby, 5th Bt.
Phoebe Hollins

Sir Brooke Boothby, 6th Baronet (3 June 1744 – 23 January 1824) was a British linguist, translator, poet and landowner, based in Derbyshire, England. He was part of the intellectual and literary circle of Lichfield, which included Anna Seward and Erasmus Darwin. In 1766 he welcomed the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Ashbourne circles, after Rousseau's short stay in London with Hume. Ten years later, in 1776, Boothby visited Rousseau in Paris, and was given the manuscript of the first part of Rousseau's three-part autobiographic Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques. Boothby published it in Lichfield in 1780 after the author's death, and donated the document to the British Library in 1781.

The well-known portrait of Boothby by Joseph Wright of Derby, from 1781, shows him reclining in a wooded glade with a book carrying on its cover simply the name Rousseau, indicating Boothby's admiration and promotion of the writer and his work generally.[3]

Several portraits were also made of Boothby's daughter, Penelope [ru]—by Henry Fuseli[4] and Joshua Reynolds[5] and in sculpture by Thomas Banks.[6] She died young, and was the subject of a book of poetry by her grieving father.[7]

  1. ^ a b George Edward Cokayne, editor, The Complete Baronetage, 5 volumes (no date (c. 1900); reprint, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1983), volume III, page 83.
  2. ^ baptised here
  3. ^ Jones, Jonathan (28 April 2001). "Sir Brooke Boothby, Joseph Wright of Derby (1781)". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  4. ^ Cullen, Fintan (1997). Visual Politics: The Representation of Ireland, 1750–1930. Cork University Press. p. 195. ISBN 9781859180235. Retrieved 30 May 2008.
  5. ^ Hurll, Estelle M. Sir Joshua Reynolds.
  6. ^ "Ashbourne Church". deryshireuk.net.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference rev was invoked but never defined (see the help page).