his eyesight to suspend his labours until 1761, when he published his ‘Treatise on the Deluge.’ He calls himself on the title-page ‘lecturer of St. John's Church, Bristol.’ Catcott contends that the Mosaic account is a full and complete explanation of the miracle of the Noachian deluge. He tries to prove, with much show of learning, that the deluge may be explained by the internal waters, which broke out and dissolved the whole earth. Catcott adopts in part the hypothesis of Woodward, but was strictly a follower of John Hutchinson, who, in his ‘Moses's Principia,’ contends ‘that the Hebrew scriptures, when rightly translated, comprised a perfect system of natural philosophy.’ In 1768 Catcott dedicated a second and enlarged edition of his ‘Treatise’ to the Earl of Buchan, and calls himself his lordship's ‘chaplain.’ He was now M.A., and spent, he informs his readers, some time in Oxford. From July 1766 till death he was vicar of Temple Church, Bristol. He pursued his inquiry with enthusiasm. He examined the ‘two Druidical temples of Abury and Stonehenge,’ the mines of Cornwall and of Derbyshire, and everywhere found proofs of the Deluge in geological remains. In the second part of the second edition of the ‘Treatise’ Catcott gives a ‘Collection of the principal Heathen Accounts of the Flood,’ which Sir Charles Lyell admits to be a very valuable contribution to our knowledge. He adds to this collection some important remarks on ‘The Time when, and the Manner how, America was first Peopled.’ Catcott died at Bristol 18 June 1779 (Gent. Mag. 1779, p. 327).
[Hutchinson's Remarks on Alexander Stopford Catcott's Sermon, 1737; Catcott's The Supreme and Inferior Elohim, 1735; Nicholls's Bristol Past and Present; Bristol Gazette, 24 June 1779; Taylor's Bristol and Clifton, 1878; information from Mr. W. George; Sir Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology.]
CATCOTT, ALEXANDER STOPFORD (1692–1749), divine and poet, son of Alexander Catcott, gent., was born in Long Acre, in the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Westminster, 10 Oct. 1692. He was admitted to Merchant Taylors' School 3 May 1699, and elected thence to St. John's College, Oxford, where he matriculated 2 July 1709. In 1712 he was elected a fellow of his college, ‘where he putt on a Civil Law gown, and took the degree of LL.B. 6 March 1717’ [–18] (Bodl. MS. Rawl. J. 4to, 5, f. 209). In a letter preserved by Dr. Rawlinson, Catcott gives the dates of his ordinations, ‘Dear Chumb … In answer to yr queries, I inform you that I was ordained deacon 8 June 1718, priest 15 March 1718–9, by Dr. Potter’ (bishop of Oxford), (ib. J. fol. 16, f. 352). On 18 April 1722 he was elected head-master of the grammar school, Bristol. In the same year he resigned his fellowship at Oxford. In June 1729 ‘the Rev. Mr. A. S. Catcott was appointed reader in Mr. Mayor's Chappell of St. Mark,’ Bristol, and ‘a sallary of 20l. per annum allowed him during the pleasure of the House’ (Manuscript Diary of Peter Mugleworth, sword-bearer, 1725–34, f. 95). Eleven years afterwards he held the lectureship of St. John's at Bristol (Audit Book, Bristol Corporation). A sermon preached by him in 1735 before Lord-chief-justice Hardwicke (then lord high steward of Bristol) was printed at the expense of the Bristol corporation; it occasioned a controversy which lasted many years. Catcott was presented to the rectory of St. Stephen's, Bristol, by Lord-chancellor Hardwicke 2 Jan. 1743–4 (Bodl. MS. Rawl. fol. 16, 355), when he resigned the mastership of the grammar school. Thomas Fry, D.D., president of St. John's College, Oxford (d. 1772), and Richard Woodward, D.D., bishop of Cloyne (d. 1794), were among Catcott's pupils (G. S. Catcott, Manuscript). He died of a lingering disorder 23 Nov. 1749 (Bristol Weekly Intelligencer, 29 Nov.), and six days later was buried in St. Stephen's Church (burial register). Among his contemporaries Catcott was distinguished as a ‘pulpit orator’ (Bristol Weekly Intelligencer), ‘a good poet, profound linguist, well skilled in Hebrew and Scripture philosophy, and a judicious schoolmaster’ (Barrett, Hist. of Bristol, 1789, p. 514). Wesley testifies to his eminent piety (Journal, 1827, iv. 192; see also Dr. Wilson, History of Merchant Taylors' School, 1072). Catcott was a Hutchinsonian, and ‘one of those authors who first distinguished themselves as writers on the side of’ that school (Jones, Memoirs of Bishop Horne, 1795, p. 23). In a note appended to his Assize Sermon, 1736, Catcott expresses his indebtedness to Hutchinson. Several of Hutchinson's letters to Catcott are in the City Library, King Street, Bristol.
‘The Poem of Musæus on the Loves of Hero and Leander,’ 1715, and ‘The Court of Love, a Vision from Chaucer,’ 1717, are the only poems he published separately; both ‘printed at the Theater,’ Oxford. An octavo manuscript, containing poems written by him at Oxford and Bristol, is extant. ‘In his younger days,’ Dr. Rawlinson says, Catcott ‘applyed himself much to poetry,’ but soon ‘turn'd his head more towards divinity and the languages’ (Bodl. MS. Rawl. J. 4to, 5, 209). Catcott's sons, Alexander [q. v.] and George S. Catcott, were friends of Chatter-
