Transcript

of

The Foote Family

Devon & Cornwall Notes and Queries vol. VI, (January 1910 to October 1911), pp. 171-172.

by

J.H.R

Prepared by Michael Steer

The author seeks connections between several 18th and 19th century individuals surnamed Foote, some military, some theatrical. The surname is perhaps best known to the 21st century reader through Michael Mackintosh Foot FRSL, a British Labour Party politician and man of letters born in Plymouth (1913). Foot began his career as a journalist, on the Tribune and the Evening Standard. He co-wrote the classic polemic against appeasement of Adolf Hitler. The article, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

Note 159. THE FOOTE FAMILY. - I should be glad of information concerning Lieut. Foote, of the Grenadiers, and afterwards of the Cornwall Militia, who kept Foote's Hotel, Exeter, 1814. Also some account of Josiah or Joseph Foote, comedian, who died at Exeter 6th March, 1784, aged 51. Were these persons connected in any way with Samuel Foote, the dramatist, actor and wit?

The pedigree of the latter is the most confused I know of, the accounts in Lake's History of Cornwall, vol. I, p. 215, Boase's Collectanea Cornubiensis, p. 253, and Fitzgerald's Samuel Foote (1910), (a most readable book, by the way), being at variance with each other.

Who, too, was Samuel Foote, actor and manager of Plymouth Theatre, who rebuilt the Plymouth Theatre, and was manager of Exeter Theatre, 1796? He was partner with a Mr. Hughes in the Devonport Theatre. He had been in the army. In 1798 he married Miss Hart, daughter of Chas. Hart, of Hampshire. See Thespian Dictionary, London (1802).

When was Capt. Foote, son of Lundy Foote, drowned in the Tamar?                     J. H. R.