Life

Born in London on 4 April 1760, was only son of George Rutt, at first a druggist in Friday Street, Cheapside

Cheapside

Cheapside is a street in the City of London that links Newgate Street with the junction of Queen Victoria Street and Mansion House Street. To the east is Mansion House, the Bank of England, and the major road junction above Bank tube station. To the west is St. Paul's Cathedral, St...

, and afterwards a wholesale merchant in drugs in Upper Thames Street, who married Elizabeth Towill. In early boyhood he was placed for some time under the care of Joshua Toulmin

Joshua Toulmin

Joshua Toulmin of Taunton, England was a noted theologian and a serial Dissenting minister of Presbyterian , Baptist , and then Unitarian congregations...

 at Taunton

Taunton

Taunton is the county town of Somerset, England. The town, including its suburbs, had an estimated population of 61,400 in 2001. It is the largest town in the shire county of Somerset....

. On 1 July 1771 he was admitted at St. Paul's School, London, under Dr. Richard Roberts. The headmaster recommended his parents to send him to university, but they were strict nonconformists, and would not accept the advice. Rutt went into his father's business, and continued for most of his life.

Rutt joined in 1780 the Society for Constitutional Information

Society for Constitutional Information

Founded in 1780 by Major John Cartwright to promote parliamentary reform, the Society for Constitutional Information flourished until 1783, but thereafter made little headway...

. At the time of the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

 he became an original and active member of the Society of the Friends of the People. Concern for the reformers Thomas Muir, Thomas Fyshe Palmer

Thomas Fyshe Palmer

Thomas Fyshe Palmer was an English-born Unitarian minister, political reformer and political exile.-Early life:Palmer was born in Ickwell, Bedfordshire, England, the son of Henry Fyshe who assumed the added name of Palmer because of an inheritance, and Elizabeth, daughter of James Ingram of...

 and William Skirving

William Skirving

William Skirving was one of the five Scottish Martyrs for Liberty. Active in the cause of universal franchise and other reforms inspired by the French Revolution, they were convicted of sedition in 1793-94, and sentenced to transportation to New South Wales.-Early life and farming:William Skirving...

 led him to visit them as convicts on board the hulks, when awaiting transportation, and he sent papers and pamphlets to them in New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

. He was a vigorous public speaker. His religious convictions gradually became Unitarian

Unitarianism

Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....

, and by 1796 he was a leading member of the Gravel Pit congregation at Hackney

Hackney (parish)

Hackney was a parish in the historic county of Middlesex. The parish church of St John-at-Hackney was built in 1789, replacing the nearby former 16th century parish church dedicated to St Augustine . The original tower of that church was retained to hold the bells until the new church could be...

, of which Thomas Belsham

Thomas Belsham

Thomas Belsham was an English Unitarian minister- Life :Belsham was born in Bedford, England, and was the elder brother of William Belsham, the English political writer and historian. He was educated at the dissenting academy at Daventry, where for seven years he acted as assistant tutor...

 was the pastor. With Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...

 and Gilbert Wakefield

Gilbert Wakefield

Gilbert Wakefield was an English scholar and controversialist.Gilbert Wakefield was the third son of the Rev. George Wakefield, then rector of St Nicholas' Church, Nottingham but afterwards at Kingston-upon-Thames. He was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. as second...

 he was on close terms of friendship. He supported Priestley after the riots in Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, and he was one of Wakefield's bail, smoothing matters after his incarceration in Dorchester gaol. Another intimate friend was Henry Crabb Robinson

Henry Crabb Robinson

Henry Crabb Robinson , diarist, was born in Bury St. Edmunds, England.He was articled to an attorney in Colchester. Between 1800 and 1805 he studied at various places in Germany, and became acquainted with nearly all the great men of letters there, including Goethe, Schiller, Johann Gottfried...

.

On his partial withdrawal from business about 1800 Rutt lived for some years at Whitegate House, near Witham

Witham

Witham is a town in the county of Essex, in the south east of England with a population of 22,500. It is part of the District of Braintree and is twinned with the town of Waldbröl, Germany. Witham stands between the larger towns of Chelmsford and Colchester...

 in Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

, afterwards at Clapton and Bromley by Bow, and finally settled at Bexley

Bexley

Bexley is an South East London]] in the London Borough of Bexley, London, England. It is located on the banks of the River Cray south of the Roman Road, Watling Street...

. As a member of the Clothworkers' he worked in the administration of the company's charities, and he laid the first stone of the Domestic Society's school and chapel in Spicer Street, Spitalfields

Spitalfields

Spitalfields is a former parish in the borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London, near to Liverpool Street station and Brick Lane. The area straddles Commercial Street and is home to many markets, including the historic Old Spitalfields Market, founded in the 17th century, Sunday...

.

He died at Bexley on 3 March 1841.

Works

He aided in founding the Monthly Repository

Monthly Repository

The Monthly Repository was a British monthly Unitarian periodical which ran between 1806 and 1838.The Monthly Repository was established when Robert Aspland bought William Vidler's Universal Theological Magazine and changed the name to the Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature...

, was a regular contributor to its columns, and occasionally acted as its editor; he also wrote in the Christian Reformer

Christian Reformer

The Christian Reformer was a British Unitarian magazine edited by Robert Aspland....

. In 1802 he edited a Unitarian Collection of Prayers, Psalms, and Hymns.

Rutt was the author of a volume of poetry for Thomas Fyshe Palmer, entitled ‘The Sympathy of Priests. Addressed to T. F. Palmer, at Port Jackson. With Odes,’ 1792. In conjunction with Arnold Wainewright, he published in 1804 an enlarged edition, brought down to the date of death, of the ‘Memoirs of Gilbert Wakefield,’ originally published by Wakefield in 1792.

The years between 1817 and 1831 were chiefly spent in editing the ‘Theological and Miscellaneous Works of Dr. Priestley’ in twenty-five volumes, portions of which were subsequently issued separately. The first volume Rutt separately issued as ‘Life and Correspondence of Joseph Priestley,’ 1831–2, 2 vols. Rutt also edited with notes, historical and biographical, the ‘Diary of Thomas Burton

Thomas Burton (politician)

Thomas Burton , of Brampton Hall, Westmorland, was MP for Westmorland from 1656 to 1659, and a parliamentary diarist.-Life:He was a justice of the peace for Westmorland. He was returned to parliament as member for the county on 20 August 1656...

, M.P., 1656 to 1659’ (1828), ‘Calamy's Historical Account of my own Life, 1671–1731’ (1830), and ‘The Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys. With a Narrative of his Voyage to Tangier’ (1841). He contributed articles to the Encyclopædia Metropolitana.

Family

He married, in June 1786, Rachel, second daughter of Joseph Pattisson of Maldon

Maldon

-Placenames:* Maldon, Essex is a town on the Blackwater estuary in England** Maldon , a local government district based in Maldon, Essex** Maldon Town F.C., an English football club** Maldon *The Battle of Maldon...

, Essex. They had thirteen children, seven of whom, with his widow, survived him. Rachel, the eldest daughter, married Thomas Noon Talfourd

Thomas Noon Talfourd

Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, SL , was an English judge and author.The son of a well-to-do brewer, he was born at Reading, Berkshire ....

.