James Gant born about 1770, Yorkshire
James Gant was awarded the Alexander Davidson Medal for the Nile 1798, gilt-bronze which was awarded to Petty Officers present at the Battle of Aboukir Bay on 1 August 1798.
James Gant appears on the appropriate muster roll of the HMS Bellerophon for the Battle of the Nile. Number 865 on the ship’s books, he was born in Yorkshire and entered the ship as a Landsman on 1 April 1796, aged 26. He did not live to 1848 to claim the Naval General Service Medal with bar for The Nile which was issued in 1848. It would appear from his lowly rank of Landsman as at 1796 that he later rose to the rank of Petty Officer and had the medal gilded.
HMS Bellerophon was a 74 gun 3rd Rate was commanded by the Irish Captain Henry D’Esterre Darby, who was wounded early in the action. (49 killed and 148 wounded – this was about a third of all the British casualties in the engagement. These casualties were suffered when the ship exchanged broadsides with the French 124 gun flagship L’Orient, which eventually caught fire and exploded).
HMS Bellerophon fought at the battle of The Glorious First of June (Commanded by Captain William Johnstone Hope. 4 killed and 27 wounded) at The Battle of the Nile, and at The Battle of Trafalgar, becoming one of the most famous British ships of the Napoleonic Wars. Her crew affectionately called her the Billy Ruffian (or Billy Ruff’n). At Trafalgar she was the fifth in Admiral Collingwood’s Southern division and thus was heavily engaged, battling the French L’Aigle to a bloody standstill at the cost of her captain John Cooke dead, 26 other crew killed and 123 wounded. Command was ably assumed by her first lieutenant William Pryce Cumby, who safely steered the battered ship back to Gibraltar. On board during the battle was future Arctic explorer, John Franklin, serving as a young midshipman.
She achieved further fame on 15 July 1815 when Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered to Captain Maitland of the Bellerophon and was transported to Torbay where the ship anchored off Brixham on July 24
Contributed by Paul Hogan, Sydney, Australia
Tetley Gant CMG The Hon. Tetley Gant was elected President of the Legislative Council of Tasmania in 1901. He was part of the prominent Gant family from Bradford in Yorkshire, and was also connected to the Tetley family of brewers |
Frederick James Gant A renowned surgeon born in Hackney, Middlesex in 1825, and author of many books on surgical procedures. The Gant Prize was founded at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in 1907 by the Foundation of Frederick James Gant. Awarded jointly from 2004 following the merger of the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine with University College London and Middlesex School of Medicine. |
Henry Laurence Gantt, A.B., M.E. (1861-23 November 1919) A mechanical engineer and management consultant who is most famous for developing the Gantt chart in the 1910s. These Gantt charts were employed on major infrastructure projects including the Hoover Dam and Interstate highway system and still are an important tool in project management.
Source: wikipedia.org
William Gant of 22 Corn Street, Bristol, Gloucestershire
Bookbinder, Bookseller, Stationer
Trading Dates: 1748 (date of apprenticeship) – 1781
Biographical Dates: 1733 (date of christening) – 1781 (date of death)
William Gant was apprenticed in 1748 to his aunt Mary, widow of George West a bookbinder and bookseller. He was freed in 1756. Assisted in the business by his wife, Elizabeth Gant née House, (from 1760 or before) and was succeeded by her. Master (jointly with his wife) of John Harris 1760, John Thorbran 1774, George Bourne 1777. Sun Fire Insurance policy: 424582 (1779/80).
Transcribed Wills:
William Gant, Stationer of Bristol, Gloucestershire
Elizabeth Gant, Widow of Bristol, Gloucestershire
Ann Gant, Spinster of Duke Street, Old Artillery Ground, Spitalfields, Middlesex (William Gant’s sister)
William Gant : Subscribed to Antiquity of the Wise Instructer. Being a Collection of the most Valuable Admonitions and Sentences, Compendiously put together, from an infinite Variety of the most celebrated Christian and Heathen Writers, Divine, Moral, Historical, Poetical, and Political., 1770, BROOKS, J.. Bristol
Printed for J. Brooks, the Editor, By S. Farley, in Castle-Green, 1770.
Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, 12 January, 1782:
Gant’s Circulating Library 1775 [William Gant]
Succeeded by John Thorbran
Thorbran’s Circulating Library 1782 [John Thorbran]
Succeeded William Gant.
Sources:
Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue
Plomer, Henry R. et al, A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1726 to 1775 (London, 1932)
Maxted, Ian, The British Book Trades 1775-1787: an index to insurance policies (Exeter Working Paper No. 8)
Society of Genealogists, Lists of Masters and Apprentices, c.1711-1762
R J Goulden, ‘An Obscure Stationer of Bristol: William Gant’, Factotum, 11, April 1981, pp.8-11.
William Gant was also listed in Bailey’s British Directory [for 1784]; Merchant’s and Trader’s Useful Companion for the year 1784 … in 4 Volumes … Volume 1. London; Volume 2 The Western Directory; Volume 3 The Northern Directory; Volume 4 The Eastern Directory. The First Edition, 1784, BAILEY. London
Printed by J. Andrews, Little Eastcheap, and to be had of the Author, No. 53, Basinghall-street; No. 4, Queen-street, Cheapside; Mr. Long, Optician, Royal Exchange, and of every Bookseller in Town and Country
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