Thomas Warton the elder
Thomas Warton, the elder (c. 1688 – 10 September 1745), was an English clergyman and schoolmaster, known as the second
Life
He was born about 1688, son of Antony Warton (1650–1715), vicar of
In 1717-18, Warton circulated both in manuscript and in print a satire in verse on George I, which he entitled The Turnip Hoer, and wrote lines for the "Old Pretender" James III's picture. No copy of either composition is now known. His Jacobite sympathies made him popular in the university, and he was elected professor of poetry, in succession to Joseph Trapp, on 17 July 1718. He was re-elected, in spite of the opposition of the Constitution Club, for a second term of five years in 1723. He retired from the professorship in 1728. He possessed small literary qualifications for the office, and his election provoked the sarcasm of Nicholas Amhurst, who satirized Warton across three numbers of his Terrae Filius; "Squeaking Tom of Maudlin" is the sobriquet Amhurst conferred on him.[1]
After 1723 Warton ceased to reside regularly in Oxford. In that year he became vicar of Basingstoke, Hampshire, and master of the grammar school there. Among his pupils was the naturalist Gilbert White.[2]
He remained at Basingstoke until his death, but with the living he held successively the vicarages of Framfield, Sussex (1726), of Woking, Surrey, from 1727, and of Cobham, Surrey. He died at Basingstoke on 10 September 1745, and was buried in the church there.[1]
Family
He married Elizabeth, second daughter of Joseph Richardson, rector of Dunsfold, Surrey, and left two sons, Joseph Warton and the better-known Thomas Warton, and a daughter, Jane Warton.[1]
Works
Warton was a writer of
Notes
- ^ a b c d e Lee 1899
- ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 337.
- ^ David Fairer, The Poems of Thomas Warton the Elder?, Review of English Studies (1975) XXVI (104): 395-406.
References
Attribution:
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney (1899). "Warton, Thomas (1688?-1745)". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 59. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 431–432.