John Platts (1775–1837) was an English Unitarian minister and author, a compiler of reference works.

Life

He was born in

Boston, Lincolnshire Boston is a market town and inland port in the borough of the same name in the county of Lincolnshire, England. It lies to the south-east of Lincoln, east of Nottingham and north-east of Peterborough. The town had a population of 45,339 at ...

. For seven or eight years he officiated as a

Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

minister there; but later he became a Unitarian, and acted as a Unitarian minister at Boston from 1805 to 1817. In 1817 he moved to

Doncaster Doncaster ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, Yorkshire, River Don, it is the administrative centre of the City of Doncaster metropolitan borough, and is the second largest se ...

. Platts supplemented his ministerial income by teaching and compiling educational works. He was also a Liberal activist, and humorous speaker. He died at Doncaster, after a long illness, on 19 June 1837. His widow died in 1851, leaving five daughters.

Works

In 1825 Platts published five volumes of ''A New Universal Biography'', containing lives of eminent persons in all ages and countries, arranged in chronological order, with alphabetical index. This work, founded mainly on previous works by

John Aikin John Aikin (15 January 1747 – 7 December 1822) was an English medical doctor and surgeon. Later in life he devoted himself wholly to biography and writing in periodicals. Life He was born at Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire, England, son of ...

and

Alexander Chalmers Alexander Chalmers (; 29 March 1759 – 29 December 1834) was a Scottish writer. He was born in Aberdeen. Trained as a doctor, he gave up medicine for journalism, and was for some time editor of the ''Morning Herald''. Besides editions of the w ...

, extended only to the end of the sixteenth century; the rest remained in manuscript form. In 1827 appeared, Platts's ''New Self-interpreting Testament, containing many thousands of various Readings and Parallel Passages collected from the most approved Translators and Biblical Critics.'' In the preface the author claims to have combined the merits of

Francis Fox Francis Fox (December 2, 1939 – September 24, 2024) was a Canadian politician who was a member of the Senate, Cabinet minister, and Principal Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office, and thus was a senior aide to Prime Minister Paul Mar ...

and Clement Cruttwell. Another edition, in 4 vols. appeared in 1830. Platts also published: * ‘Reflections on Materialism, Immaterialism, the Sleep of the Soul … and the Resurrection of the Body; being an Attempt to prove that the Resurrection commences at Death,’ Boston, 1813. * ‘Letter to a Young Man, on his renouncing the Christian Religion and becoming a Deist,’ 1820. * ‘The Literary and Scientific Class-book,’ &c., 1821; a selection was published by L. W. Leonard in 1826. * ‘Elements of Ecclesiastical History’ 821? * �
The Book of Curiosities; … with an Appendix of entertaining and amusing Experiments and Recreations
��, 1822; a seventh American edition appeared at Philadelphia in 1856. * ‘The Female Mentor, or Ladies' Class-book; being a new Selection of 365 Reading Lessons,’ &c., Derby, 1823. * ‘A Dictionary of English Synonymes’ (for the use of schools), 1825. * ‘The Manners and Customs of all Nations’ (engravings), 1827.

References

* ;Attribution * {{DEFAULTSORT:Platts, John 1775 births 1837 deaths English Unitarians English biographers English male non-fiction writers People from Boston, Lincolnshire