Tabart, Benjamin

Submitted by edpope on

3 Tabarts sup 4.1.1810 / 9.2.1810 call on Tabart (not seen) / 10.2.1810 call on Tabart / 23.6.1810 call on Tabart (not seen) (Guildhall) / 29.6.1810 Guildhall (Tabart) / 31.7.1810 again / 11.8.1810 again / 21.8.1810 again / 11.9.1810 Baptist C H; Tabart / 9.10.1810 Haines calls from Tabart: Baptist's Head; Tabart / 18.12.1810 Tabart calls / 7.4.1820 call on La(dy) Phillips adv. Tabart

Benjamin Tabart (1767-1830) son of Benjamin Tabart & Mary St Paul. Both his parents died while he was a child and his grandfather Daniel Tabart a jeweller left money in his will PCC 1775 for his upkeep and education. In 1782 he was apprenticed for 7 years (premium £25) to Susannah Vivares, printseller of Newport Street, Soho, widow of Francis Vivares DNB 1709-1780. In 1786 he married her daughter Susanna by banns (probably illegal if he was still an apprentice) and then married her again by license in 1788. She was 8 years his senior. His mother-in-law died in 1792 and left them property but with obligations to look after another daughter and an invalide son (Susanna Vivares will PCC 1792). One of their children was baptised at Stoke Damerel, Devon in 1797 and another at Fulham in 1799. From 1801 Tabart traded at the Juvenile Library in New Bond Street, going bankrupt in 1803 but recovering quickly and publishing the works of Eliza Fenwick (DNB 1766-1840) in 1804 and 1805. In 1805 Godwin copied him with his Juvenile Library in Hanway Street, which moved in 1807 to Skinner Street, where Eliza Fenwick did a stint as shop manager. In 1808 a partnership between Tabart and Joseph Johnson (DNB 1738-1809) was dissolved. In 1810 Tabart went bankrupt again, and surrendered at Guildhall on 23.6.1810 and the next two dates above. Two more dates at Guildhall and two more at the Baptist's Head coffee house were attended by various creditors, assignees and attorneys that Godwin lists in the diary. In 1814 Tabart was in debtors' prison. In 1818 a volume of Fairy Tales by Benjamin Tabart was published. Some family trees give his death date as 16;4;1830 at Paddington but I couldn't confirm this; His son Francis Gerard Tabart had a number of careers including a clothier at Uley, Glos., and a purser in the Royal Navy, but moved with his family to Tasmania in the 1830s, where his mother Susanna Tabart died in 1839.