Life

John Mathew, eldest son of John Gutch

John Gutch

John Gutch was an Anglican clergyman and official of the University of Oxford. He was also an antiquarian, with a particular interest in the history of the university.-Life:...

, was born in 1776, probably at Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, and was educated at Christ's Hospital

Christ's Hospital

Christ's Hospital is an English coeducational independent day and boarding school with Royal Charter located in the Sussex countryside just south of Horsham in Horsham District, West Sussex, England...

, where he was the schoolfellow of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...

 and Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb was an English essayist, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare, which he produced with his sister, Mary Lamb . Lamb has been referred to by E.V...

. He first entered business as a law stationer in Southampton Buildings, where Lamb for a time lodged with him in the latter part of 1800. Shortly before Lamb's death Gutch commissioned F. S. Cary to paint Lamb's portrait.

In 1803 Gutch moved to Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

, and became proprietor and printer of Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, with which he was connected till his death, though he disposed of his proprietary share of the paper in 1844. Gutch acquired a great reputation as a provincial journalist, and this induced him to join with Robert Alexander in starting the London Morning Journal; in this enterprise he not only lost much of the money which he had saved, but was also prosecuted for libelling George IV and Lord-chancellor John Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst

John Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst

John Singleton Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst PC KS FRS , was a British lawyer and politician. He was three times Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.-Background and education:...

 in May 1829. Gutch almost at once severed his connection with the paper; he was, however, convicted in December, but was shortly afterwards discharged on his own recognisances. Alexander, who had been concerned in a further libel on the Duke of Wellington

Duke of Wellington

The Dukedom of Wellington, derived from Wellington in Somerset, is a hereditary title in the senior rank of the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The first holder of the title was Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington , the noted Irish-born career British Army officer and statesman, and...

, was sent to Newgate Prison

Newgate Prison

Newgate Prison was a prison in London, at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey just inside the City of London. It was originally located at the site of a gate in the Roman London Wall. The gate/prison was rebuilt in the 12th century, and demolished in 1777...

, and the Morning Journal was suppressed.

Besides his journalistic work Gutch conducted for some years a secondhand book business, and issued two catalogues in 1810 and 1812, and was also the publisher of a few books. After his second marriage in 1823 he moved to Worcester

Worcester

The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...

, where he joined his wife's father as a banker, but still went to Bristol every week to superintend the publication of Farley's Journal. The bank failed in 1848.

Gutch possessed a large library, especially rich in the works of George Wither

George Wither

George Wither was an English poet, pamphleteer, and satirist. He was a prolific writer who adopted a deliberate plainness of style; he was several times imprisoned. C. V...

, which was sold by Messrs. Sotheby & Wilkinson in London in 1858 for over £1,800.

He died at his residence, Barbourne, near Worcester, on 20 Sept. 1861, aged 84. Gutch was twice married: (1) to Mary Wheeley, daughter of a coachmaker at Birmingham, by whom he had one son, John Wheeley Gough Gutch

John Wheeley Gough Gutch

John Wheeley Gough Gutch was a British surgeon and editor. He was also a keen amateur naturalist and geologist, and a pioneer photographer....

, and (2) in 1823 to a daughter of Mr. Lavender, a banker of Worcester; by her he had no children. He was a J.P. for Worcestershire

Worcestershire

Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...

, and a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries

Society of Antiquaries of London

The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...

.

Works

Gutch wrote or edited:

• Narrative of a singular Imposture carried out at Bristol by one Mary Baker, styling herself the Princess Caraboo, 1817. regarding the hoaxer 'Princess Caraboo
  Princess Caraboo
  Mary Baker was a noted impostor who went by the name Princess Caraboo. She pretended to be from a faraway island and fooled a British town for some months.-Biography:...
  
  '.
• Poems of George Wither, Bristol, 1820, three vols.; this collection was never completed; some copies are divided into four vols., and bear the date 1839. Gutch had written a life of Wither, apparently to accompany his edition of the poems, but when he quitted Bristol left the sheets in a warehouse, in which they suffered such injury that "if I had not preserved for my own private library sheets of all, I could not have made a perfect copy. This I have done, and it is the only one in existence" (letter from Gutch, quoted in Athenæum, 1858, i. 500).
• The Country Constitutional Guardian, a monthly serial which appeared from 1822 to 1824.
• The present mode of Election of the Mayor and Sheriffs and Common Council of Bristol,' Bristol, 1825; reprinted from 'Farley's Journal.'
• Felix Farley Rhymes by Themaninthemoon, i.e. Rev. John Eagles
  John Eagles
  John Eagles , was an English artist and author.Eagles was the son of Thomas Eagles, was born in the parish of St. Augustine, Bristol, in 1783, and baptised 8 November of that year. After receiving some preliminary training under the Rev. Samuel Seyer at Bristol, he was admitted a pupil of...
  
  , who was a friend of Gutch.
• Observations upon the Writing of the Ancients, upon the Materials they used, and upon the Introduction of the Art of Printing, Bristol, 1827; four papers read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of the Bristol Institution.
• Robin Hood Garlands and Ballads, with the tale of the lytell Geste. A collection of all the poems and ballads relating to this celebrated yeoman, with his history, 2 vols. 1850 (illustrated by Fairholt). In 1867 appeared 'Robin Hood; a Collection of Ballads, Songs, and Poems, with Notes by J. M. Gutch.
• A Garland of Roses from the Poems of the late Rev. John Eagles,' 1857; only fifty copies printed for private circulation.
• Watson Redivivus: four Discourses … of the Rev. George Watson, M.A., Fellow of University College, Oxford, and Tutor … of Bishop Horne, 1860.

Gutch also published anonymously The Letters of Cosmo, which originally appeared in Farley's Journal, and earned for him the name of the Bristol Junius. According to the writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1862, he also wrote some pamphlets on local subjects, and an octavo volume on the Bristol riots of 1832. He contributed to the Gentleman's Magazine and to Notes and Queries

Notes and Queries

Notes and Queries is a long-running quarterly scholarly journal that publishes short articles related to "English language and literature, lexicography, history, and scholarly antiquarianism". Its emphasis is on "the factual rather than the speculative"...

, and at the time of his death was compiling for the Warwickshire Archæological Society a history of the battle-fields of that county; a portion was published in the society's Transactions.