Showing 285 results

SOUTH, ROBERT, son of Robert South, Hackney, Middlesex, merchant, and his second wife Elizabeth, eldest dau. of Capt. John Berry, Lydd, Kent; b. 4 Sep 1634; adm.; was “up School” on the morning of 30 Jan 1648/9, when “the King was publicly prayed for … but an hour or two (at most) before his sacred head was struck off “ (South, Sermons, 1823, iii, 411); KS 1650; elected head to Christ Church, Oxford 1651, matr. 11 Dec 1651, Westminster Student to 1670 [check]; BA 24 Feb 1654/5; MA 1657 (incorp. Cambridge 1659); BD and DD 1663 (incorp. Cambridge 1664); ordained 1658; Public Orator, Oxford Univ. 10 Aug 1660 – Nov 1677, res.; Chaplain to Earl of Clarendon, Chancellor of Oxford Univ.; Prebendary of Westminster from 30 Mar 1663; Rector of Llanrhaiadr yn Mochnant, Denbighshire 1666/7 – still 1678 (when disp. to hold with R. Islip); Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, from 29 Dec 1670; went to Poland as Chaplain to Laurence Hyde (afterwards Earl of Rochester), Ambassador there 1676-8; Rector of Islip, Oxfordshire, from 1678; Chaplain in Ordinary to Charles II; attacked William Sherlock, Master of the Temple, in his Animadversions, 1693, and accused Sherlock of Tritheism 1695; declined Bishopric of Rochester and Deanery of Westminster on death of Thomas Sprat in 1713; an eloquent and pithy preacher, with a gift of humour; rebuilt chancel and rectory at Islip at his own expense; bequeathed his property in Caversham, Oxfordshire, and Kentish Town, Middlesex, to Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, Oxford, upon trust for certain charities named in his will, the surplus of the yearly income to be paid to six poor scholars of Christ Church who had been “bred and brought up in Westminster School, commanly called the King’s or Queen’s Scholars [check] there”; an original trustee of Busby’s will; several editions of his collected sermons have been published; d. unm. 8 Jul 1716. After lying in state four days in Jerusalem Chamber, his body was carried into College Hall, where John Barber (qv), Captain of the KSS, pronounced a funeral oration over it; buried at the foot of the steps before the altar, Westminster Abbey, near the grave of Richard Busby (qv), with monument facing Poets’ Corner. DNB.

By his will dated 30 Mar 1713/4 (proved 24 Jul 1716) he left his estates at Caversham, Oxfordshire, and at Kentish Town, Middlesex, after the death of his housekeeper Margaret Hammond and the expiry of her life interest in them, to the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, Oxford, upon trust to pay out of the income “to six poor scholars for ever twenty nobles apiece by even and equall portions … and that the said poore scholars be all of them of Christ Church in Oxon. ; but bred and brought up in Westminster Schole commonly called the (King’s or Queen’s) Schole there and these likewise to be of the sole choice and nomination of the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church and their successors for ever”. By the ordinances annexed to the Christ Church (Oxford) Ordinances Act 1867, the income was directed to be applied, with other funds, for the maintenance of the Westminster Junior Studentships.
According to E.G.W.Bill, op.cit., p.104-5, “the foundation had a shaky start, and the first appointment of an exhibitioner was not made until 1738”. As Bill records, “the value of the exhibitions by themselves was too small to have much effect, but South was often held with one or more of the Lee exhibitions”. The foundation remained “incapable of improvement until the Dean and Chapter were empowered to grant building leases of the Kentish Town estate in 1851”.

PHILLIMORE, SIR ROBERT JOSEPH, BART., third son of Joseph Phillimore (b. 1775, qv); b. 5 Nov 1810; adm. 1 Feb 1820 (G); KS 1824; elected head to Christ Church, Oxford 1828, matr. 16 May 1828, Westminster Student; BA 1832; MA 1834; BCL 1835; DCL 1838; Clerk, Board of Control 20 Feb 1832 – 6 Apr 1835; adm. Middle Temple 17 Nov 1837, called to bar 7 May 1841, Bencher 1858, Treasurer 1859; adm. advocate, Doctors’ Commons 2 Nov 1839; Chancellor, Dioceses of Chichester 1844, Salisbury 1845 and London 1855; QC 16 Jan 1858; MP (Peelite/Liberal) Tavistock Feb 1853-7; Admiralty Advocate 1855-62; Judge of Cinque Ports 1855-75; Queen’s Advocate 1862-7; knighted 17 Sep 1862; Dean of Arches 1867-75, Master of the Faculties 1873-5; Judge of High Court of Admiralty 1867-75; Privy Councillor 3 Aug 1867; Judge of Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, High Court of Justice 1875-83; Judge Advocate-General 17 May 1871 – Aug 1873; created baronet 28 Dec 1881; a personal friend and political supporter of Gladstone; gave evidence before the Public Schools Commission 23 Jun 1862 (Parliamentary Papers 1864, vol. xxi, pp 428-32); Busby Trustee 19 May 1868- Jun 1884; Governor of the School from 1869; benefactor to the School; President, Elizabethan Club, from 1876; translated Lessing, Laocoon 1874; author, Commentaries on International law, 1854-61, and other legal works; m. 19 Dec 1844 Charlotte Anne, third dau. of John Denison MP, Ossington Hall, near Newark, Notts.; d. 4 Feb 1885. DNB.

In 1863 and 1864 he gave prizes for an English essay, and in the latter year he expressed his intention of giving an annual prize of £6 6s for the essay, and a further prize of £3 3s. for translation into English. These prizes were awarded by him up to his death in 1885, and continued to be awarded after his death from funding supplied by his son Walter George Frank Phillimore, 1st Baron Phillimore (qv), also one of the School’s benefactors.

NEILE, RICHARD, son of Paul Neile, King Street, Westminster, tallow chandler, and Sybil Hasinge; bapt. 11 Mar 1561/2; at school under Grant (Wood, Athenae Oxon. , ii, 341); according to Leighton’s Epitome, 1646, 66, “the Schoolmaster was never off his Breech, by which he became so sorry a Dunce, that untill that hour he could never make a right Latin Theame”; St. John’s Coll. Camb. , adm. 22 Apr 1580, Burghley scholar (on nomination of Dean Goodman), matr. 1580; BA 1583/4; MA 1587; BD 1595; DD 1600 (incorp. Oxford 15 Jul 1600); ordained deacon and priest (Peterborough) 6 Jul 1589; Chaplain to Lord Burghley; held various ecclesiastical preferments; Treasurer of Chichester 5 Jul 1598 – Dec 1610, Prebendary 30 Apr 1604 – Jan 1613/4, also Canon Residentiary 20 Jan 1609/10- Jan 1613/4; Master of the Savoy 24 Jan 1602/3-5; Dean of Westminster 5 Nov 1605 – Dec 1610; took a great interest in the School, and while Dean is said to have sent two or three scholars yearly to the Universities at his own cost; Rector of Southfleet, Kent 1608-10; consecrated Bishop of Rochester 9 Oct 1608; translated to Lichfield and Coventry 6 Dec 1610, and to Lincoln 18 Feb 1613/4; made a violent attack on the House of Commons 24 May 1614, for which he finally apologised with tears; translated to Durham 9 Oct 1617; Privy Councillor 29 Apr 1627; translated to Winchester 7 Feb 1627/8; accused of Arminianism by the Commons 13 Jun 1629; sat regularly in Court of High Commission and in the Star Chamber; Archbishop of York from 19 Mar 1631/2; an uncompromising churchman and strict disciplinarian; of little learning, but of much address and capacity for business; m. ; d. 31 Oct 1640. DNB.

In the account which he drew up of what had been done by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster during the time that he was Dean he records “Myself have yearly sent out of this School (besides those six that have been elected), whom I have gotten placed in other colleges besides Trinity College and Christ Church, some years two, some years three, and with some charge to me ; which I have carefully done in a thankful remembrance of God’s goodness showed to me in my being preferred from this School to St.John’s College, Cambridge, by the honourable bounty of my foundress and patroness, the Lady Mildred Burghley”.

Turle, James; son of James Turle, Taunton, Somerset, and Elizabeth Forrest ; b. 5 Mar 1802 ; chorister, Wells Cathedral 1810-3 ; came to London in 1814 as articled pupil of John Jeremiah Goss ; organist, Christ Church, Blackfriars Road 1819-29, St.James, Bermondsey 1829-31 ; connected with Westminster Abbey from 1817 as pupil, assistant and deputy to the Abbey Organists ; Organist and Master of the Choristers, Westminster Abbey, from 1831 ; he retired from the active duties of the post in 1875, but retained the title and the residence of the Organist to death ; Music Master Jun 1865 – May 1871 ; composer of hymn tunes and glees ; author, Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship, 1864, and (with J.F.Bridge), Chants as used in Westminster Abbey, 1878 ; m. 1823 Mary, dau. of Andrew Honey, Chief Cashier, Exchequer Branch, Bank of England ; d. 28 Jun 1882. Father of William Honey Turle, Charles Edward Turle, Henry Frederic Turle and James Robert Turle (qvv). ODNB.

WEBBER, WILLIAM CHARLES FYNES, eldest son of James Webber (qv); b. 1 Jan 1815; adm. 5 Apr 1826; KS 1829; elected head to Christ Church, Oxford 1833, matr. 23 May 1833, Westminster Student; BA 1837; MA 1839; an Usher at the School 1837-40, left “on account of the extreme fewness of the T.B.” (Town Boy Ledger); ordained deacon 22 Dec 1839, priest 20 Dec 1840 (both Oxford); Perpetual Curate of Maiden Bradley, Wilts., 1842-4; Rector of St. Botolph’s, Aldersgate, London 6 Jun 1845 – 3 Aug 1876; Minor Canon of St. Paul’s 2 Dec 1851 – 23 Dec 1858, Sub-Dean from 23 Dec 1858, Succentor 1859-75; m. 19 Apr 1853 his cousin Catherine Mary, eldest dau. of William Charles Webber (qv); d. at Lausanne, Switzerland 27 Jun 1881.

BENTHAM, JEREMY, son of Jeremiah Bentham, attorney-at-law, Red Lion Street, Houndsditch, London, and his first wife Alicia, widow of --- Whitehorne, and sister of George Woodward Grove (qv); b. 15 Feb 1747/8; adm. 1755; (Morel's according Bentham's memoir); elected KS 1759, but remained a Town Boy; left Aug 1760; Queen’s Coll. Oxford, matr. 28 Jun 1760; BA 1764; MA 1767; adm. Lincoln’s Inn 26 Jan 1763, called to bar 6 Nov 1769; did not practise his profession, but resident in chambers in Middle Temple 1766-9, Lincoln’s Inn from 1769; turned his mind to science and to speculations on politics and jurisprudence; his Fragment on Government, a masterly criticism of Blackstone’s Commentaries, appeared anonymously in 1776; friend and protege of Earl of Shelburne (later 1st Marquis of Lansdowne); a successful promoter of law reform and one of the ablest propagandists of the doctrine of utilitarianism; exercised great influence in the fields of ethics and jurisprudence; his published works were collected and edited by Sir John Bowring and John Hill Burton, in an eleven-volume edition published in 1843; his reminiscences of his school-days at Westminster appear in vol. x, 26-35, where it will be seen that his opinion of the instruction, discipline and usages of the School in his day was by no means flattering; two small MS volumes containing school and college exercises by him are preserved in the School Library; d. unm. 6 Jun 1832; his skeleton is preserved at University Coll., London. DNB.

GIBBON, EDWARD, only son of Edward Gibbon (qv), and his first wife; b. 27 Apr 1737; adm. Jan 1747/8 (Porten's); left Aug 1750, on account of ill-health; Magdalen Coll. Oxford, adm. fellow commoner 3 Apr 1752; received into Roman Catholic church 8 Jun 1752, but returned to Protestantism at Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1753; became attached to Susanne Curchod (afterwards Mme Necker), but at his father’s wish the engagement was broken off; adm. to Academy, Lausanne 1 Dec 1756; officer in Hampshire Militia 12 Jun 1759-70; author, Essai sur l’Etude de la Litterature, 1761; met John Baker Holroyd (afterwards Lord Sheffield) at Lausanne 1764; in Italy 1764-5; the idea of writing on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire first occurred to him when in Rome on 15 Oct 1764; author, Mémoires Littéraires de la Grande Bretagne, 1767-8, jointly with his Swiss friend Deyverdun; author, Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of the Aeneid, 1770, attacking Warburton; settled in London 1772; elected to The Club 1774; MP Liskeard 1774-80, Lymington 25 Jun 1781-4; a Commissioner for Trade and Foreign Plantations 6 Jul 1779 - Jun 1782; Professor of Ancient History, Royal Academy, from 1787; FSA 20 Nov 1788, FRS 27 Nov 1788; author, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776-87, 4 vols.; defended the chapters on Christianity in a Vindication, 1779; retired to Lausanne 1783; his Miscellaneous Works, edited by his friend Lord Sheffield, and including his Memoirs of My Life and Writings, were published in 1796; d. unm. 16 Jan 1794. DNB.