Newfound Particulars of Blake’s Patrons, Thomas and Elizabeth Butts, 1767–1806

Abstract

As friendly benefactors of William and Catherine Blake, the clerk Thomas Butts (1759–1845) and his schoolmistress wife, née Elizabeth Mary Cooper (1754–1825), merit an occasional spotlight in the background of Blake studies. To published profiles of the couple may now be added details of their occupations, possessions, finances, and other circumstances from previously unexplored materials in the London Metropolitan Archives, the National Archives, parish records, and miscellaneous publications of the time. Corrections of earlier errors, along with additions to core facts about Butts’s family history and Methodist heritage, are noted here.