• Born November 1782, first son of John Barton the Elder (1754-1789) and his first wife Maria Done (1752-1784).
• Died 18 March 1784, aged 16 months, of whooping cough. He died not long after his mother.
• Not to be confused with John's third son (with his second wife Elizabeth Horne (1760-1833)), called John Barton Senior (1789-1852).

Birth

"I fear you will think me a very idle correspondent, or a very indifferent father when I now tell you for the first time that my wife was brought to bed of a Boy five weeks ago --- The good women have named him John, and thereby turned me into an old fellow at once. As some consolation for this indignity, however, I have the pleasure to inform you that young John is very likely to become, in due time, the Old Man in his turn, as (though he was in so mighty hurry to get into the world that he came a full month sooner than he ought - yet) he is in a fair way of doing well, & his Mother, of course, is prodigeously proud of him, & has already discovered many striking (and no doubt infallible) prognostics of his future genius, penetration and abilities ---" From a letter by John Barton to William Roscoe, dated December 1784.

Death

"I hope my dear friend will not impute it to any want of respect or regard for him, that I have been thus long in acknowledging his very kind and much esteemed letter of the 29th Ulto; but will rather attribute my silence to the very afflicting & distressing situation in which I have been ever since that time. The very day on which my friend wrote to me, was the last which my late dear and excellent Wife was ever permitted to see. She was taken from me the next morning a little after three O'clock; when I was for ever deprived of the most inestimable blessing w‘ch this world ever did, or ever can afford me, and left to mourn a loss, the greatness of which I become every [day?]more and more sensible of. But, my dear friend, tho' this has been the greatest, it is not the only affliction with which I have been visited. My eldest little Boy, now near a year and a half old, is also taken from me. He has been ill about six weeks in the Hooping Cough, which last has proved fatal to him. He died this morning [18 March 1784] about ten O'clock. He was a sweet little child and but a few weeks ago in the full bloom of health, with every appearance of a long continuance of it; and I had fondly entertained the most flattering expectations concerning him. But alas! how little do we know what a day may bring forth; and how justly are we exhorted, in this mixed and uncertain state of things, to rejoice, (even when our prospects are the most engaging as tho’ we rejoiced not!" From a letter by John Barton to William Roscoe, dated March 1784.