John Nutt

John Nutt was a 17th-century English pirate. He was one of the more notorious brigands of his time raiding the coast of southern Canada and western England for over three years before his capture by Sir John Eliot in 1623. His arrest and conviction caused a scandal in the English court, after Nutt paid Eliot £500 in exchange for a pardon, and was eventually released by Secretary of State George Calvert.

Biography

Born in Lympstone, near Exmouth in Devon, England, John Nutt arrived in Newfoundland as a gunner on a Dartmouth ship around 1620. He decided to settle in the area permanently and moved his family to live in Torbay, Newfoundland and Labrador. He soon organized a small crew with whom he seized a small French fishing boat as well as two other French ships (another account claims the ships were English and Flemish) during the summer of 1621 before returning to the western coast of England. He continued using unemployed sailors, particularly those conscripted to press gangs, and actually lured away a significant number from the Royal Navy paying regular wages and commissions. He also offered his services to protect French and English settlements including the Colony of Avalon then under the leadership of George Calvert.

John Nutt (printer)

Elizabeth Nutt (c. 1666 – November 1746) and John Nutt (? – 1716) were printers and booksellers and distributors in London in the early 18th century. John Nutt's most famous publication was the first three editions of Jonathan Swift's A Tale of a Tub, but he and Elizabeth were important both as publishers and sellers of many works of English law and literature.

John Nutt remains an obscure individual, with only his death well attested in 1716. Elizabeth Carr married John Nutt in 1692, and she was at that time already a practicing "mercury," or seller of newspapers and pamphlets. Independent of her husband, she is referred to as a significant and honest seller by John Dunton in 1705. She therefore brought a retailing business to the marriage, and John brought a printing house. The couple lived in the Savoy off of the Strand in London for nearly all of their adult lives, and they sold books, pamphlets, and news sheets by the Royal Exchange.

John Nutt had a shop in the Savoy at least by 1705, when he published Swift's first major satire the year before (1703/4 and 1704). That same year, he obtained an exclusive patent to print law books. When John Nutt died in 1716, Elizabeth took over the printing business and had her son, Richard, manage the presses, and Richard took over the publication of legal writings in 1722. Elizabeth also worked with Anne Dodd, the most famous distributor of books of the day. She would print books and sell them to Dodd for retail sale, as well as sell them in her own stalls.

John Nutt (disambiguation)

John Nutt may refer to:

See also

John Nutt (MP)

John Nutt (1605 – 10 October 1668) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1653. He fought on the Parliamentary side in the English Civil War.

Nutt was an alderman of Canterbury and lived at Nackington House at Nackington.

In April 1640, Nutt was elected Member of Parliament for Canterbury in the Short Parliament. He was re-elected in MP for Canterbury for the Long Parliament in November 1640. He was commissioned as a captain in the parliamentary army and was a member of the parliamentary committee for Kent.

Nutt died at the age of 63 and was buried at Nackington.

Nutt married firstly Anne Master, daughter of Sir Edward Master and had nine children before she died in 1641. He married secondly Ann Aldrich, daughter of John Aldrich of Norfolk.

References