Joseph Sortain

Joseph Sortain (1809–1860) was a British nonconformist minister, an evangelical Independent, philosophy tutor at Cheshunt College, and biographer of Francis Bacon. A reputed preacher of his time, he was called "the Dickens of the pulpit" by John Ross Dix.

He was born in Clifton, Bristol; his father was a baker of Huguenot descent. His parents were in the congregation of James Sherman. This chapel was in the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion derived from the Calvinistic Methodists. In 1823 the congregation came under William Lucy, and shortly migrated to the Lodge Street Chapel.

Sortain attended the Bristol Baptist Academy when still young (around 1824); at this period he won an essay prize, in a competition for which Lucy was his sponsor, on the topic Christ's Mission. Reading Micaiah Towgood dissuaded him from going to the University of Cambridge. He then studied at Cheshunt College, and Trinity College, Dublin. He returned to Cheshunt College as a tutor, from 1838 to 1850. Under the initial arrangement he taught mathematics, logic, and belles lettres, for two periods of six weeks in a year.

From 1832 Sortain was the Countess of Huntingdon's preacher at her North Street Chapel in Brighton, where he was admired as an orator, and noted for not exceeding 30 minutes. He held to the dissenting position of his family, though he was known not to differ much from Anglican theological positions.Henry Crabb Robinson appreciated Sortain as a preacher, while thinking Frederick William Robertson ("Robertson of Brighton") would rival him.

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