Edward Vernon Utterson

Edward Vernon Utterson (1775/76 – 14 July 1856) was a British lawyer, literary antiquary, collector and editor. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, one of the original members of the Roxburghe Club, a member of the Athenaeum Club, Camden Society and Royal Society of Arts, Recorder of Chichester and a Trustee of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club. He went on to become one of the Six Clerks in Chancery, a position which he kept until his retirement on the abolition of the post in 1842, and also founded the Beldornie Press.

Biography

Born in 1775 or 1776 as the first of John Utterson of Fareham, Hampshire (who was the secretary of Sir Edward Vernon) and his wife Elizabeth's ( Elizabeth Rowe) eight children, he was baptised on 14 July 1777 at Holy Trinity Church, Gosport. He was educated at Eton College, entered Trinity College, Cambridge on 17 February 1794, and Lincoln's Inn on 31 October 1794. Utterson matriculated from Trinity College in Michaelmas term 1797 and was admitted pensioner on 17 February 1798, graduating Bachelor of Laws in 1801, and being called to the bar as a barrister on 1 February 1802.

He married Sarah Elizabeth Brown (1781–1851) on 2 May 1803. Though the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography states they had several children together, while A. T. Utterson says that they had "a rather mysterious daughter, believed to have been adopted, but about whom nothing is certainly known". Utterson practised in the Court of Chancery and was appointed to be one of the Six Clerks in Chancery in 1815, which post he retained until it was abolished in 1842, whereupon he retired, retaining his full salary.

His wife died on 22 September 1851, and after this he held the first sale of his library, from 19 to 27 April 1852. Utterson himself died aged 80 on 14 July 1856 at Upper Brunswick Place, Hove, Brighton, and was buried at Fareham. There are memorial tablets in St Thomas's Church, Ryde, to him and his wife. It is believed that he must have started his collection early in the 19th century, and he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1807. He was one of the eighteen members who founded the Roxburghe Club at dinner at the St. Albans Tavern, St Albans Street, London, on 17 June 1812, which he remained a member of until his death in 1856.

He edited a number of books from 1812 to 1839, and then founded his own press, Beldornie Press, publishing a number of notable reprints from 1840 to 1843. These books were printed in very limited numbers, of no more than about twelve to twenty, each copy numbered in print or handwriting. Utterson presented a copy of all of these to John Payne Collier on discovering the interest he had in early English literature. Collier discovered a number of inconsistencies in the books, which he attributed primarily to the scribes and compositors employed by Utterson for Beldornie Press, and published a note to that effect in the 5 January 1856 issue of Notes and Queries, assuming Utterson to be dead. Utterson quickly wrote to him in person, informing him that he was alive and well, and Collier wrote a second note in the next issue, apologising for the confusion. His warning over the accuracy of the Beldornie Press reprints, however, still stands.

Artist Utterson was also a talented amateur artist, and many of his works remain in the British Museum to this day. He was admitted to draw from the British Museum's Townley Gallery in 1817, which had been opened to allow artists to draw from its ancient sculptures, and met artist James Ward there that year. When he exhibited his work in 1824, he was described as "an imitator as well as an admirer of the compositions of Mr Stothard".

Yachtsman

Utterson owned the yacht Iris of Ryde, and was elected a member of the English division of the Royal Western Yacht Squadron in Portsmouth on 27 October 1835. He was also made a Trustee of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club in Ryde, Isle of Wight.