Wolcott, John

Wolcott, John an English satirist, better known as Peter Pindar, was born at Dodbroke, Devonshire, in 1738. He was educated as a physician, and in 1767 accompanied sir William Trelawney, governor of Jamaica, to the West Indies as medical attendant. Though an avowed unbeliever, he returned to England, took orders in the Church, and sailed again for Jamaica, where he accepted a small curacy until the death of Trelawney, in 1768, when he returned to England, and spent twelve years in trying to establish himself as a physician at several places in Cornwall. He died January 14, 1819. He published numerous satirical pieces, ridiculing the Royal Academy to such an extent that the government, it is said, thought it worth while to purchase his silence with £300 a year. Collections of his writings appeared between 1789 and 1812.