ROBERT POCOCK. 5 



At an early age, and concurrently with his free 

 school education, it is believed that Pocock held the 

 post of an errand boy in his father's shop, but whether 

 or not he became actually apprenticed to the grocery 

 trade does not appear; probably not, for his intel- 

 lectual habits and craving for literary pursuits, and his 

 love of Nature, seem to have made the pursuit of that 

 trade repugnant to him. At all events, it is clear that 

 he attached himself by preference to the trade of print- 

 ing, and in some way acquired the needful knowledge 

 of that business so as to establish himself in it. It was 

 probably about 1779 that he married his first wife, Ann 

 Stillard, the spinster daughter of Edward Stillard, who 

 held a situation in the old East India House, in Leaden- 

 hall Street, London. 



His marriage, and the birth of three children succes- 

 sively in 1780, 1782, and 1786, no doubt stimulated 

 his industry for the necessary maintenance of his 

 growing family, and we have good proof of his energy 

 since, when scarce twenty-six years of age, he esta- 

 blished a printing-press, and collected a library for the 

 use and benefit of his native town. 



Meanwhile, that hi s practical knowledge of printing 

 was more than usually compl ete appears from his having, 

 in after-life, cast his s on J s type for printing. The follow- 

 ing entry under his own hand, in his "Local Chrono- 

 logy/' is simple and devoid of all rhetorical nourish. 



'1786. The first printing-press and circulating 

 library established in Gravesend by Robert Pocock 

 writer of this Chronology and compiler of the ' His- 

 tory of Gravesend. 7 ' 



At this period he seems to have possessed all the 

 emotions of youth, both in his antipathies and friend- 

 ships, and to have been much given to the composi- 



