Joshua Joyce

Joshua Joyce (1756-1816) was the younger brother of Jeremiah Joyce (1763-1816), a well-known Unitarian minister, teacher, and radical reformer.  After the death of his father in 1778, Joshua provided the means for Jeremiah to study at the newly formed Hackney College under the Rev. Hugh Worthington.  After completing his studies, Jeremiah tutored the sons of Earl Stanhope, living in the Earl’s household from 1790 to 1800.  He quickly adopted the views of the radical reformers, joining the Society for Constitutional Information and the London Corresponding Society.  On 4 May 1794, he was arrested at Stanhope’s home in Kent for “treasonable practices” and sent to the Tower in London, along with John Thelwall, Thomas Hardy, Horne Tooke, and several others. Joshua Joyce, along with Earl Stanhope and many other reformers, worked zealously for the freedom of his brother and the others who were charged with treason. Flower was friend to both Joyces, publishing editions of several of Jeremiah Joyce’s works as well as the latter’s edition of Thomas Fysshe Palmer’s A narrative of the sufferings of T. F. Palmer and W. Skirving, during a voyage to New South Wales, 1794, on board the Surprise Transport (1797).  For obituaries on Joshua and Jeremiah Joyce, see Monthly Repos­it­ory (1816), 244.