John Batten

I picked up a second hand reprint of a book first published in the late 1800s. Doughty John Batten was a well known figure in Yeovil in the 1800s. A local solicitor, he held lots of public appointments, as well as being deputy lieutenant for Somerset. He was keenly interested in local history, and when nearly eighty years old, published his 'South Somerset Villages'. It's full of detailed and painstaking research, done over many years. Its publication seems to have given its author a new lease of life: he attended the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Meeting in Sherborne in 1896, and read a paper, with those present remembering his vigorous and smart appearance and manner, as well as his clear enunciation 'which would have done credit to a man 20 years his junior'.