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People & Organisations
Dean of Christ Church, Oxford Locations

Atterbury, Francis, 1663-1732

  • GB-2014-WSA-00244
  • Person
  • 1663-1732

ATTERBURY, FRANCIS, brother of Lewis Atterbury (qv); b. 6 Mar 1662/3; adm.; KS 1674; elected head to Christ Church, Oxford 1680, matr. 17 Dec 1680, aged 17, Westminster Student 18 Dec 1680-94 (void, perhaps on marriage), Tutor 1687-90; BA 1684; MA 1687; BD and DD 5 May 1701; replied to Obadiah Walker’s attack upon the Reformation 1687; assisted his pupil Hon. Charles Boyle in his defence of the genuineness of the Epistles of Phalaris against Bentley; ordained; Lecturer, St. Bride’s, London 1701; Chaplain in Ordinary to William III and Queen Mary, subsequently to Queen Anne; warmly opposed Erastianism and protested against the suppression of Convocation; Archdeacon of Totnes 11 Jun 1701-13; Prebendary of Exeter 6 May 1704; Dean of Carlisle 2 Oct 1704; Prolocutor of Lower House of Convocation 1710; Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, 28 Sep 1711-3; installed Dean of Westminster 16 Jun 1713 and consecrated Bishop of Rochester 15 Jul 1713; although he took part officially in the coronation of George I, he refused to sign the declaration of confidence in the government after the rebellion of 1715, and subsequently was in direct communication with the Jacobites; arrested and imprisoned in the Tower 24 Aug 1722, for his alleged connection with an attempt to restore the Stuarts; a bill of pains and penalties was passed through the House of Commons, and carried in the House of Lords by 83 votes to 43; deprived of all his ecclesiastical preferments 1 Jun 1723, and banished from the kingdom; visited in the Tower by some of the senior King’s Scholars before his departure; resided first at Brussels and afterwards in France as general adviser to the Old Pretender; a man of marked attainments, but cursed with an imperious and aggressive temper, and possessed of “a rare talent for fomenting discord”; his old friend George Smalridge (qv), who succeeded him both at Carlisle and at Christ Church, used to say that “Atterbury comes first and sets everything on fire, and I follow with a bucket of water”; regarded as one of the leading preachers of his day, and in Addison’s opinion was “one of the greatest geniuses of his age”; much to the annoyance of Old Westminsters, Atterbury removed the Election in 1718 from the School to the Jerusalem Chamber, and put down the Election Dinner (HMC Portland MSS, v, 561, vii, 275); owing to his insistence the new Dormitory was built on its present site, the first stone being laid 24 Apr 1722; Busby Trustee from 27 Feb 1705/6; m. c. 1695 Catherine Osborne; d. in exile in Paris 22 Feb 1731/2 and buried privately in the south aisle of the nave of Westminster Abbey 12 May 1732. DNB.

Markham, William, 1719-1807

  • GB-2014-WSA-00977
  • Person
  • 1719-1807

MARKHAM, WILLIAM, eldest son of Maj. William Markham, Barrack-Master of Kinsale, co. Cork, and Elizabeth, dau. of George Markham, Worksop, Notts.; bapt. 9 Apr 1719; adm. (aged 14) 21 Jun 1733; KS (Capt. ) 1734; elected to Christ Church, Oxford 1738, matr. 6 Jun 1738, Westminster Student 23 Dec 1738 – void by marriage 18 Jun 1759, Tutor 1742-52, Junior Censor 1751; BA 1742; MA 1745; BCL and DCL 1752; adm. Gray’s Inn 29 Jan 1742/3; ordained priest (Oxford) 17 Dec 1748; Head Master of the School Feb 1753 – Mar 1764; Chaplain in Ordinary to George II 1756 (still 1760); Prebendary of Durham 22 Jun 1759 – Feb 1771; Dean of Rochester 20 Feb 1765 – Oct 1767; Vicar of Boxley, Kent 1765-71; Dean of Christ Church, Oxford 23 Oct 1767 – Jan 1777; consecrated Bishop of Chester 17 Feb 1771; Preceptor to Prince of Wales and Prince Frederick 12 Apr 1771 – 28 May 1776; Archbishop of York from 20 Jan 1777; Lord High Almoner from 21 Jan 1777; Privy Councillor 31 Jan 1777; attacked in House of Lords by Duke of Grafton and Earl of Shelburne 30 May 1777, for having preached doctrines subversive of the Constitution in a sermon at St. Mary-le-Bow Feb 1777; Markham’s “pernicious” doctrines were also attacked by Earl of Chatham; had a narrow escape at his house in Bloomsbury Square during Gordon Riots; at one time an intimate friend of Edmund Burke, whose Philiosophical Enquiry, 1756, he corrected for the press, and afterwards revised; a staunch friend and supporter of Warren Hastings (qv); “our great glory”, wrote Jeremy Bentham (qv), “was Dr. Markham : he was a tall portly man and “high he held his head” … We stood prodigiously in awe of him; indeed he was an object of adoration” (Bentham, Works, 1843, x, 30); during his Head mastership the old Granary in Dean’s Yard was removed and the houses on the Terrace probably built; donor of the scenes for the Latin Play, designed by James Stuart and in use from 1758 to 1808; Busby Trustee 18 Mar 1756; m. 16 Jun 1759 Sarah, dau. of John Goddard, Rotterdam, merchant; d. 3 Nov 1807. Buried North Cloister, Westminster Abbey. DNB.

Robinson, Richard, ca. 1711-1794

  • GB-2014-WSA-14860
  • Person
  • ca. 1711-1794

ROBINSON, RICHARD, 1ST BARON ROKEBY (I), sixth son of William Robinson, Rokeby, Yorks., and Merton Abbey, Surrey, and Anne, dau. of Robert Walters, Cundall, Yorks.; b.; adm. (aged 9) Oct 1720; Min. Can. 1721; KS 1722; elected to Christ Church, Oxford 1726, matr. 13 Jun 1726, Westminster Student 22 Dec 1726 – void 18 Apr 1740 (expiry year of grace as R. Etton from 16 Apr 1739); BA 1730; MA 1733; BD and DD 1748 (incorp. BD Dublin 1751); ordained deacon (Winchester) 2 Mar 1734, priest (Oxford) 23 Dec 1735; Curate, Cowley, Oxfordshire 1737; Chaplain to Most Rev. Lancelot Blackburne (qv), Archbishop of York, 1738; Prebendary of York 4 May 1738 – Nov 1751; Rector of Etton, Yorks., 20 Apr 1739-52; Rector of Hutton Bushel, Yorks. 22 Apr 1742; Chaplain to Lionel Cranfield Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset (qv), Lord Lieut. Ireland, 1751; consecrated Bishop of Killala 19 Jan 1751/2; translated to Ferns and Leighlin 19 Apr 1759 and to Kildare 13 Apr 1761; installed Dean of Christ Church, Dublin 16 Apr 1761; Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland from 8 Feb 1765; Privy Councillor (I) 22 Feb 1765; Vice-Chancellor, Dublin Univ., 1765-91; created Baron Rokeby (I) 26 Feb 1777; first Prelate, Order of St. Patrick, from the Order’s foundation in 1783; succ. brother as 3rd baronet 1785; financed the building of Canterbury Quadrangle, Christ Church, Oxford 1773-83; FSA 6 Jun 1776; spent large sums of money on improvement of his diocese, and left a bequest for the establishment of an university in Ulster; d. unm. 10 Oct 1794, aged 86. DNB.