Freedom of the Press TUTCHIN

[joboy]

John Tutchin born Lymington c 1663 was the editor of 'The Observator'.
He was a nonconformist and virulently anti papist.
Sadly abused by Judge Jeffries he died 1707.
There is much history about him but nothing that I have found of his mother,father or siblings ..... I believe he had a sister Martha who married John Overing and they went to America.
I really would appreciate any information or input regarding this man's family.
He was certainly a pioneer of 'Freedom of the Press'
Joe

[Peter Goodey]

Little seems to be known of his background. The Dictionary of National Biography says he was possibly born on the Isle of Wight. He may have been 'born and Bred’ a gentleman, and a freeman of the City of London'. His father, grandfather and several...uncles were said to be Non-Conforming Ministers. It was also suggested that he was ‘once a Member of the Academy in Garlands Court, in the Parish of Stepney’.

I imagine that if you find anything else out, you'll make a name for yourself!

[joboy]

You are correct Peter ....... the Surman Index No 1497 states that Robert TUTCHIN was v.of Newport IOW 1654-1662 and that he died 1671 plus he was father of John (died 1697) Robert (died 1685) and Samuel (died 1674).
I strongly suspect that the John that I initially referred to was a son of Robert (died 1685) but have found nothing to support this so far.
I have learned that all of the above were dissenting ministers and were ejected during the protestant revolution.

[Coromandel]

John Ashton's 'Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne' (on Google Books) refers to a sister, Mrs Elizabeth Tutchin:

Girls . . . had boarding schools of their own; and the schoolmistresses seem always to have been harassed by malicious reports. For instance: 'Whereas it is reported that Mrs. Overing who keeps a Boarding School at Bethnal Green near Hackney, is leaving off; this is to give Notice that the said Report is false, if not Malicious. And that she continues to take sober young Gentlewomen to board, and teaches them whatsoever is necessary to the Accomplishment of that Sex.' Take another: 'Mrs. Elizabeth Tutchin [footnote ref. 1] continues to keep her School at Highgate, notwithstanding reports to the contrary. Where young Gentlewomen may be soberly Educated, and taught all sorts of Learning fit for Gentlewomen.'

[footnote 1] She was sister of Tutchin, of the Observator.

Whether this is a spinster sister using the title 'Mrs', or a sister-in-law, is not clear.

Note the reference to a Mrs Overing too (I found this book when looking for more about the Martha Overing mentioned in your first post). This may be just a coincidence, of course.


Edit: But perhaps Elizabeth was John's widow not sister? Unless there was more than one schoolmistress of this name:

'The nonconformist Elizabeth Tutchin, widow of the pamphleteer John Tutchin, moved there [Hornsey] from Newington Green and opened a girls' school after 1710 . . .'

(Victoria County History of Middlesex, Vol. 6, referring to DNB)

[Coromandel]

From 'Early Baptists in Hampshire', an article published in The Baptist Quarterly

https://www.
biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/bq/01-5_223.pdf

'At Lymington a licence was taken by Robert Tutchin junior, son of a Presbyterian minister, and described as a Presbyterian. But that same year he was fined two shillings for a disturbance, and Mr. King in his Old Times of Lymington Revisited, comments that he was a Baptist, and father of the man who compiled the Western Martyrology.'

So far I've had no luck finding an online edition of Old Times of Lymington Revisited though there are plenty of other references to it.

[joboy]

Some more that has just been unearthed from my extremely untidy 'odds and ends';

John Tutchin married Elizabeth Hick(e)s 30 Sep 1688.She was the daughter of the presbyterian minister, John HICKES or HICKS, and was sufficiently educated to keep a girls’ school after Tutchin’s death, first at Newington Green, and afterwards in 1710, near the Nag’s Head, Highgate, ‘with good accomodations for lodgers’.

from The Dictionary of National Biography by Sidney Lee