Sir Brooke Boothby

Sir Brooke Boothby
Print by John Raphael Smith after Reynolds
Born	3 June 1744 Ashbourne, Derbyshire, England, Great Britain
Died	23 January 1824 Boulogne, Paris, France
Residence	Ashbourne Hall
Education	St John's College, Cambridge
Occupation	Translator, poet, landowner
Title	6th Baronet Boothby, of Broadlow Ash
Spouse(s)	Susanna Bristoe
Children	Penelope
Parent(s)	Sir Brooke Boothby, 5th Bt. Phoebe Hollins

Sir Brooke Boothby, 6th Baronet (3 June 1744 – 23 January 1824) was a linguist, translator, poet and landowner, based in Derbyshire, England. He was part of the intellectual and literary circle of Lichfield, which included Anna Seward and Erasmus Darwin. In 1766 he welcomed the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Ashbourne circles, after Rousseau's short stay in London with Hume. Ten years later, in 1776, Boothby visited Rousseau in Paris, and was given the manuscript of the first part of Rousseau's three-part autobiographic Confessions. Boothby translated the manuscript and published it in Lichfield in 1780 after the author's death, and donated the document to the British Library in 1781.

The well-known portrait of Boothby by Joseph Wright of Derby, from 1781, shows him reclining in a wooded glade with a book carrying on its cover simply the name Rousseau, indicating Boothby's admiration and promotion of the writer and his work generally.

Several portraits were also made of Boothby's daughter, Penelope — by Henry Fuseli and Joshua Reynolds and in sculpture by Thomas Banks. She died young, and was the subject of a book of poetry by her grieving father.

Boothby was born in 1744. He inherited his unusual forename from Hill Brooke, the second wife of the fourth Baronet Boothby, of Broadlow Ash, Sir William. Brooke Boothby is sometimes referred to as the seventh Baronet as there was some confusion over the appointment of the first Baronet. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, matriculating in 1761.

Boothby was active in local intellectual life as an associate of the scientific group, the Lunar Society which was interested in the application of the sciences to modern life and its development, and the Lichfield Botanical Society. He, members of the Lunar Society and the intellectual circle of Lichfield, met the free-thinking Jean-Jacques Rousseau who fled from France in 1766–7 and was staying at Wootton, near Boothby's home, Ashbourne Hall.

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