John Billingsley

John Billingsley (1747–1811) was an agricultural pioneer in 18th century Somerset, England. The writer of the 1794 Survey of Somerset, Billingsley was a leading agriculturalist who was one of the founders of the Bath and West Society, known today as the Royal Bath and West of England Society. He lived all his life at Ashwick Grove. Family life He was born in 1747, the grandson of Nicholas Billingsley, a Presbyterian dissenter who was minister at Ashwick from 1699 to 1729. Little is known about his early life but by 1782, he was listed as Brewer along with Ryan Gosling of the Oakhill Brewery in the neighbouring village of Oakhill, and may have been involved in the wool trade before that.