He was the treasurer of the Southern Baptist Association and was given an engraved silver deskset on his retirement from that organization. This deskset was later passed down in A.F.B. Burt’s line of the family, i.e the descendants of John Bartlett Burt’s sister Harriet.

Listed in 1841 census in Boldre with his wife Mary and her parents. He took over the mill when his father-in-law died.

Living in “Hatchet Villa” East Boldre, Hampshire28 in 1871.

His date of death was listed as July 11, 1886 in Hatchett Villa, Beaulieu, by Joanna Woodley, and also in his death announcement card from the Burt family photo album.131 From the Index of Wills and Administrations: “BURT John Bartlett, Personal Estate £1,816, 10 September. The Will of John Bartlett Burt late of Hatchett Villa Beaulieu in the County of Southampton Protestant Dissenting Minister who died 11 July 1886 at Hatchett Villa was proved at the Principal Registry by Frances Burt of Hatchett Villa Widow the Relict and Clarissa Catherine Smith of Selly Oak Birmingham in the County of Warwick Spinster the Executrixes.

There was a place labelled with his name in the Burt family photo album beside his 2nd wife’s photo but unfortunately the photo is missing.

from the “Baptist Handbook”, 1887 pages 99-101, Memoirs of Ministers:161
BURT, JOHN BARTLETT, who was pastor of a church at Beaulieu Rails, in the New Forest, for fifty-eight years, was born at Montacute in 1802. His parents were members of the Church of England; his father, a stonecutter by trade, had little influence on his only son, whom he alternately over-indulged and treated with severity; his mother was a devout woman, to whose instructions and prayers her son was accustomed to refer, when himself old and grey-headed, as the first occasion of his conversion. The boy had an imperfect education; his father had been unsuccessful in business and had removed his son from a boarding school to a small village day school, where he was allowed to do much as he liked and learned very little. He soon tired of this, and, as he says in a fragment of autobiography, to which we owe our knowledge of his early life, “I took it into my head that I would not go to school any more.” The stonecutter and his wife do not seem to have made any objection; perhaps the former was not sorry to save fees and to get some work out of his boy, and there were no school boards in those days. So school was left and chisel and mallet taken to. Looking back on these early years, over half a century, Mr. Burt felt that he had learned much evil from his early association with the rougher workmen in his father’s employment, but had been kept from the practice of the evil he learned by his mother’s prayers and instructions. The story of his early religious life cannot be better given than in his own simple words: -- “I heard nothing like Gospel truth at the parish church, but sometimes on a Sunday evening I went to chapel, and remember feeling deeply on some occasions. When quite a boy I engaged in teaching in a Sunday-school. This, together with my morality, filled me with Pharisaic piety. . . After a while I left the Sunday-school and went to chapel more frequently. About the same time, also, a fresh curate came to the church, who, I believe, preached the Gospel. From his preaching I obtained some good; but one Lord’s-day he exchanged services with the curate of Martock, a very earnest preacher, who said in the course of his sermon (and even to the present day (1859) I retain a feeling of his earnest look when he said it), ‘There is not a man or woman in this church but may be saved if he will.’ This went to my heart. I believed it, . . .and from that time I could not rest till I found peace through the blood of the Cross. . . . This I obtained, not through any preaching, but in secret prayer, and have never lost it to the present day. I have scarcely ever since had what I could call a doubt of my conversion.”
Soon after this revolution in his life he was made a Dissenter and a Baptist by a violent tract abusing Nonconfomists from a Church of England point of view. With characteristic fairness of mind he was led, by the railing Rabshakeh of the tract, to study the New Testament, and the clear convictions which resulted were loyally obeyed by the young man of twenty. He was baptized in 1824, and from that date to his death more than 60 years after, continued to be what some people people seem to consider an impossible monster --a profoundly religious and sturdily political dissenter. The usual desire to work for his Lord took possession of the young convert. He offered himself to the Baptist Missionary Society as a missionary schoolmaster for Jamaica. To his dismay he found that he must preach “to the church in the vestry.” His text and his feelings about the ordeal were both characteristic. The former was, “God is love”--the aspect of the Divine nature on which his tender, humble spirit always delighted to dwell, and which shed grace and peace over his life and character. As to the latter, he says, “I felt so much about this that I went through the whole sermon in a dream on the preceding night.” He was accepted by the Missionary Committee, and according to the usage then prevailing, was sent to “Mr. Gray, of Northampton,” for some preliminary training. With the humble estimate of his own work, and the calm acquiescence in want of popularity, which kept this saintly man peaceful and content in his unnoticed toil all his days, he notes, in the quietest, most matter-of-course tone, “I do not think my preaching was much esteemed” in the Northamptonshire village churches, then in their palmy days, and containing many an exacting critic of Mr. Gray’s young men. From Northampton Mr. Burt removed to Stepney College. His stay at Stepney was brief, and terminated in a fashion which does not show the then Missionary Society officials as superabundantly considerate of a young man’s feelings. “I received,” says Mr. Burt, “a hint from Mr. Dyer that it was not certain wheterh or not I should be sent out as a missionary. I expect this was because my preaching was not so good as they considered necessary fro a missionary, as I never received a hint of any other kind. Soon after I was told that the committee had decided not to send me. I think nothing ever gave me such pain of heart as this announcement.” Certainly the pain was not likely to be lessened by the manner of it. There does not seem to have been any oil and wine of sympathy and frankness poured in to the wound. However, the secretary did tell the sorely-disappointed youth that “Mr. Millard, of Lymington, had been inquiring for a suitable man fro Beaulieu,” and thither Mr. Burt went in June, 1828. In the deliberate fashion of those days, the settlement was not completed till January following, when he was “ordained to the postoral office.” An ordination was an ordination then. There was no tea meeting, with half-a-dozen speeches, composed of equal parts of flattery and fun, but “Mr. Draper delivered th introductory address, Mr. Turquand offered the ordination prayer, Mr. Price, my pastor, gave the charge from a a very sutable text, and Mr. Millard preached to the people.”
The little church, the pastor of which was thus solemnly installed, was made up of agricultural labourers and the like. They were prevented from obtaining a site for their chapel in the parish of Beaulieu by the action of the ducal landowner, and so they had built themselves a chapel just outside his estate, on the edge of the breezy common which ends the New Forest at that point. The principal man of the congregation was a miller, whose picturesque mill, with its great pond, still makes a conspicuous feature on the common. The young minister went to live with the miller, as was natural, and indeed necessary, there being no other suitable house near. The miller had an only daughter who, in du time, became Mrs. Burt, as was equally natural, and, if not necessary, clearly expedient. Some still living, among whom is the present writer, have pleasant remembrances of her bright eyes and sunny smile, here quaint ways and generous hear, her active godliness and busy liberality. Things went smoothly at first, but after a year or tow trouble came from hyper-Calvinists. Mr. Burt was not a fighting man, and the worry from his pertinacious antagonists sent him into ill-health and depression, which led to his resignation after five years’ pastorate. He intended to find another charge but it was finally determined to build a chapel, and form another church. This was done with the full approbation of neighbouring ministers and churches, and fro twelve years this unhappy state of matters continued.
During that time, however, although his relations with his fomer church were strained, Mr. Burt’s ministry was largely useful, and he had much happiness in his work. His wise forbearance and patient continuance in well-doing were rewarded at last. When time had softened unkindness, and death takent away some of the opposing leaders, character had its victory, and the breach was healed by the re-union of the churches and Mr. Burt’s return to his first chapel. The second building was then used as a day-shcool, on which for many years he spent more than he received from the church. The circumstance which rendered this disposal of his salary possible, and which enabled him to maintain his ground in the face of much difficulty and opposition, was his having practically become a miller, aas well as a minister. During his father-in-law’s lifetime he had gradually been obliged to assume the management of the business, and finally, on the death of the former, it passed into Mr. Burt’s hands. This double occupation, although advantageious in many respects, and although its proceeds were given away, was thought by him to be injurious to hie usefulness, and not favourable to his religious character. Burt, so long as his wife lived, he respected her delight “in giving away the profits,” and, though he knew she would have consented to the slae, he forbore to carry out his own preferences. Mrs. Burt died in 1856, and soon after he disposed of his business, and handed over the proceeds to the Baptish Missionary Society and to Stepney College, the committee engaging to pay him four per cent for his life.
From that time till his death, a period of nearly thirty years, Mr. Burt have himself entirely to his ministry among his humble flock, and with rare disinterestedness and assiduity, with a courage which never shrunk from avowal of his princeples, and a gentleness which ever tempered without weakening his courage, with singular modesty and contentment, with unfeigned devoutness and zeal, which did not flare, but lasted for a long life time, did his Master’s work, and preached his Saviour’s name. During nearly the whole of that time he had the joy of a true yoke-fellow in the person of his like-minded second wife. He married, in 1857, Miss Clare, the daughter of another saintly man, who for long years filled the pastorate of a village church. In her he found all that he needed for his heart and his work. Thus happy in his home, he toiled on for his village hearers. He kept up his reading and his tudy of Scripture. He wrote his three sermons weekly. He was adviser-general to the whole country-side of humble folk. He waqs active in all denominational work, and unwearied in his services to the churches of the Southern Association, all of which he had seen change their pastors many times. He was a consistent and courageous Nonconformist in a place and at a time when and where it was not easy to stand alone against landlord and clergyman. To his ministerial brethren he was a trusty friend, tenacious in his affection, absolutely free from all trace of jealousy, reliable in counsel, and ready to help. He lived a retired, inconspicuous life of Christian devotedness, and did his work as well as he could, not concerned, though few knew hof him or it. But perhaps some much more “brilliant” careers look dim, when seen from above, beside the obscure work of the New Forest pastor.
He died as he had lived. Only two or three evenings before his death, on seeing a bright star, he said, “I wonder if my work will be there. I do not understand those who think of heaven simply as rest. I should be miserable if I could not still work on for Him who has done so much for me.” On the morning of the first Sunday in July he asked if it was not nearly time for going to chapel. The people were just passing the house in little groups on their way to the chapel where he had preached so long. “Let the rest go,” said he to his wife, “you will stay, won’t you?” They were his last words, singularly expressive of his profound regard for the public worship of God, of his clinging love, and hof his modest forbearance to urge his own claims, all habitual and prominent characteristecs. Then he looked as seeing some door, unseen to us, open in heaven, and so, in a monent, died--a fitting end for such a life. --A. McL.