Joseph Sortain

Joseph Sortain (1809–1860) was a British nonconformist minister, an evangelical Independent, philosophy tutor at Cheshunt College, and biographer of Francis Bacon.

[7] Sortain attended the Bristol Baptist Academy when still young (around 1824); at this period he won an essay prize, in a competition for which Lucy was his sponsor, on the topic Christ's Mission.

Under the initial arrangement he taught mathematics, logic, and belles lettres, for two periods of six weeks in a year.

[9][10] From 1832 Sortain was the Countess of Huntingdon's preacher at her North Street Chapel in Brighton, where he was admired as an orator, and noted for not exceeding 30 minutes.

[13][16] These articles of the mid-1830s were anonymous, but attributions to Sortain have been made, for topics such as Brougham on natural theology, Coleridge, Charles Lyell on geology, and Mary Somerville's Connection of the Physical Sciences in the British Critic.

[9][24] The Eclectic Review noticed this work with one by Charles Pettit McIlvaine, as anti-Tractarian, though giving it little space, and regretting the "declamatory" style, while praising the content.

[31] His brother was Dr James Cornish Sortain M.D., a well known planter in Batticaloa, Ceylon, medical physician and philanthropist.