John Prior Estlin

John Prior Estlin (1747-1817) was originally from Leicestershire. He was educated by his uncle, an Anglican clergyman, who was chaplain to the Earl of Moira. He then attended Warrington Academy and studied under John Aikin, father of Anna Letitia Barbauld and Hays’s correspondent, John Aikin, Jr. He began his duties at Lewin’s Mead in 1771, and shortly thereafter opened a school in St. Michael’s Hill, and eventually was awarded a LL.D. from Glasgow for his teaching accomplishments. Among the literary figures who knew him were Mary Scott, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, Joseph Priestley, and the Baptist minister, Robert Hall. He preached his final sermon at Lewin’s Mead in June 1817 and died that August Among his publications is the posthumous Familiar Lectures (1818).