Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nutt, Joseph

1417784Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 41 — Nutt, Joseph1895Charlotte Fell Smith ‎

NUTT, JOSEPH (1700–1775), surveyor of highways, son of Robert and Sarah Nutt of Hinckley, Leicestershire, was baptised there on 2 Oct. 1700 (parish reg.). He was educated at the free grammar school, Hinckley, and afterwards apprenticed to John Parr, an apothecary in the same town. After studying in the London hospitals he settled in his native town, where he became successful and popular, frequently doctoring the poor for nothing. Having been chosen one of the surveyors of highways for Hinckley parish, he turned his attention to the roads, and introduced a system of periodically flooding them. The track thus became firm and substantial for saddle and pack horses, the latter then much used for transporting pit-coal from the mines, and the land on either side was also enriched.

Nutt's procedure was resisted, and he himself subjected to ridicule; but his opinion as a land valuer was sought by others, especially by Sir Dudley Ryder, attorney-general (1737–1754). John Dyer [q. v.], the poet, was on familiar terms with Nutt, and celebrated in his poem of ‘The Fleece’ the utilitarian talents of the ‘Sweet Hincklean swain whom rude obscurity severely clasps’ (edition of 1762, p. 27).

Nutt died at Hinckley on 16 Oct. 1775, and was buried in the churchyard.

By his will he left six oak-trees to build within forty years of his death, a new market-place for Hinckley, with a school and town-hall above it.

[Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary, xxiii. 273–4; Nichol's Hist. and Antiq. of Hinckley in the Bibl. Topogr. Brit. vii. 187–9.]

C. F. S.