Hello Jane,
If you are still kindly answering questions after more than two years ...
There's a Charles Pooley at 8 George St. in Bath, on UK directories between 1822 and 1842, under various listings over the years:
Chemists and Druggists,
Apothecaries,
Chemist and Druggist to the Queen Dowager,
Dispensing, and Member of the Pharmaceutical Society of London, as well as
Fire and Life Assurance agents,
Phoenix Fire, Protector Life agent
Was he gaining more credentials and side businesses as time went on?
Was the "Chemist and Druggist to the Queen Dowager" anything significant?
Where would he have trained? He seems to have had apprentices or assistants living with him on different Census. Would there have been an initial school training at that time?
Was it customary for Chemists to sell insurance?
He had a son John C Pooley who also became a chemist in Bath.
Thanks for any light you can shed,
Adair