Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hatchett, Charles
HATCHETT, CHARLES (1765?–1847), chemist, born about 1765, was the son of John Hatchett, coachbuilder, of Long Acre, London, by Elizabeth his wife. He was elected F.R.S. on 9 March 1797 (Thomson, Hist. Roy. Soc. Append. iv. p. lxiv). On 21 Feb. 1809 he became a member of the Literary Club, originally founded by Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1764, and on the death of Dr. Burney in 1814 he was appointed treasurer. He furnished John Wilson Croker with an account of the club and a complete list of its members, printed in Boswell's ‘Life of Johnson,’ ed. Croker, i. 492, 528. Hatchett died on 10 Feb. 1847 at Bellevue House, Chelsea, aged 82, and was buried near his parents and wife Elizabeth (d. 1837) at Upton-cum-Chalvey, Buckinghamshire (Lipscomb, Buckinghamshire, iv. 576; Gent. Mag. new ser. xxviii. 214–15). He was author of a treatise ‘On the Spikenard of the Ancients,’ 4to, London, 1836, and contributed many papers to Nicholson's ‘Journal’ and to the ‘Philosophical Transactions.’ The more important of the latter were published separately between 1798 and 1805, and comprised: ‘An Analysis of the Magnetical Pyrites, with remarks on some other Sulphurets of Iron,’ London, 1804, 4to; ‘On an Artificial Substance which possesses the principal characteristics of Tannin,’ London, 1805, 4to. A tolerably complete list of his writings and some account of his pictures and curiosities, together with his portrait engraved by F. C. Lewis after the painting by T. Phillips, will be found in Faulkner's ‘History of Chelsea,’ ed. 1829, i. 89–92.
[Authorities as above; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]