# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Gatty, Alfred

​GATTY, ALFRED (1813–1903), vicar of Ecclesfield and author, born in London on 18 April 1813, was second surviving son of Robert Gatty, solicitor, of Angel Court and Finsbury Square, London, by his wife Mary, daughter of Edward Jones of Arnold, Nottinghamshire. The family originally came from Cornwall, where it had been settled since the fifteenth century. Gatty entered Charterhouse in 1825, and was removed to Eton in 1829. For a time he prepared for the legal profession, but on 28 April 1831 he matriculated from Exeter College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. in 1836, proceeding M.A. in 1839 and D.D. in 1860. Gatty was ordained deacon in 1837 and priest in the following year. From 1837 to 1839 he was curate of Bellerby, Yorkshire. In the latter year he married, and was thereupon nominated by his wife's maternal grandfather, Thomas Ryder of Hendon, Middlesex, to the vicarage of Ecclesfield, near Sheffield, which he held for sixty-four years. Under his care the church was completely restored in 1861. In the same year he was appointed rural dean. He became sub-dean of York minster in 1862, and in the course of his career served under six archbishops of York. He died at Ecclesfield on 20 Jan. 1903. Gatty was twice married: (1) on 8 July 1839 to Margaret (1809–1873) [q. v.], youngest daughter of Alexander John Scott [q. v.], by whom he had six sons and four daughters; and (2) on 1 Oct. 1884 to Mary Helen, daughter of Edward Newman of Barnsley, Yorkshire, who survived him without issue. The third son of the first marriage, Sir Alfred Scott-Gatty, has been Garter King-of-arms since 1904, and the second daughter, Mrs. Juliana Horatia Ewing [q. v.], made a reputation as a writer for the young. A portrait of Gatty by Mrs. S. E. Waller, which was presented to him by his parishioners on the fiftieth anniversary of his incumbency, belongs to his second son, Reginald Gatty, rector of Hooton Roberts, Yorkshire.
Gatty's literary labours were prolonged and various. While still an undergraduate he published a slight volume of verse, ‘The Fancies of a Rhymer’ (1833). Later he collaborated with his wife, Margaret Gatty, in ‘Recollections of the Life of the Rev. A. J. Scott, D.D., Lord Nelson's chaplain’ (1842), in an edition of the ‘Autobiography of Joseph Wolff’ (1860), in a descriptive account of a tour in Ireland, entitled ‘The old Folks from Home’ (1861), and in the compilation of ‘A Book of Sundials’ (1872; 4th edit. 1900). Gatty repeatedly lectured before the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society, and published a useful ‘Key to Tennyson's “In Memoriam”’ (1881; 5th edit. 1894). But his name was best known as a writer on local topography and archæology. In 1847 appeared his learned essay on ‘The Bell; its Origin, History, and Uses’ (2nd edit. 1848). This was followed in 1869 by an enlarged folio edition of Joseph Hunter's ‘Hallamshire’ and in 1873 by a popular history of ‘Sheffield, Past and Present.’ Between 1846 and 1858 Gatty also issued four volumes of sermons.
[The Times, 21 Jan. 1903; A. Gatty, A Life at One Living, 1884; Men of the Time, 1899; private information from Sir Alfred Scott-Gatty.]
G. S. W.