Gough
JOHN BARTHOLOMEW, an American temperance lecturer; born in Sandgate, Kent, Kent, England, Aug Aug. 22, 1817.
His father was a pensioner of the Peninsular war, his mother a village schoolmistress. At the age of 12 he was sent to America, and worked on a farm in Oneida co., New York. In 1831 he went to New York City, where he found employment in a book establishment; but habits of dissipation lost him this employment, and reduced him to that of giving recitations and singing comic songs at low grog shops. He was married in 1839; but his drunken habits reduced him to poverty. In 1842 a benevolent Quaker induced him to attend a temperance meeting and take the pledge; and soon afterward, resolving to devote the remainder of his life to the cause of temperance, Gough attended temperance meetings and related his experience with such effect as to influence many others.
A few months later he had a short relapse into drunkenness; but an eloquent confession restored him to favor, and he lectured with great pathos, humor, and earnestness in various parts of America.
In 1853 he was engaged by the London Temperance League, and lectured for two years in the United Kingdom, where he attracted large crowds to his meetings.
He was again in England in 1857-1860 and 1878. "Autobiography" (1846); "Orations" (1854); "Temperance Address" (1870); "Temperance Lectures" Gleanings from My Lifework" (1880). and "Sunlight and Shadow, or He died in Frankford, Pa., Feb. 18, 1886.