William Vincent (priest)
William Vincent | |
---|---|
Dean of Westminster | |
Church | Church of England |
In office | 1802–1815 |
Predecessor | Samuel Horsley |
Successor | John Ireland |
Personal details | |
Born | Limehouse Street Ward, London | 2 November 1739
Died | 21 December 1815 Islip, Oxfordshire | (aged 76)
Nationality | English |
Denomination | Anglicanism |
Education | Westminster School |
Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
William Vincent (2 November 1739 – 21 December 1815) was Dean of Westminster from 1802 to 1815.
Biography
Vincent born on 2 November 1739 in Limehouse Street Ward, London, was the fifth surviving son of Giles Vincent, packer and Portugal merchant, by Sarah (Holloway).[1]
Theological career
William was admitted at
Headmaster of Westminster School
Meanwhile, in 1788, Vincent had been appointed headmaster of Westminster. He held the position for fourteen years, respected alike for both scholarship and character. His swinging pace, sonorous quotations, and especially his loud call of "Eloquere, puer, eloquere" ("Speak out, boy!") dwelt long in the memory of his scholars. His name is perpetuated by his enclosure of part of the nearby Tothill Fields for his old school as a playground, called Vincent Square after him. As the waste marshlands of the Tuttle or Tothill Fields were beginning to be built over, Vincent simply employed a man with a horse to plough a ditch around an area of some eleven acres; his receipt for the fee is in the Abbey archives.[citation needed]
In his adherence to
In 1805 Vincent obtained the rectory of St John's, Westminster, and resigned that of All Hallows to his son. In 1807 he exchanged St John's for the rectory of
The fire which broke out in the roof of the lantern of Westminster Abbey on 9 July 1803 necessitated repairs to the fabric. They were all paid for by the dean and chapter; but in 1805 Vincent addressed a letter to Pitt praying for a national grant for the restoration of the
Classical scholar
Vincent made his reputation as a classical scholar by the publication of a Latin treatise entitled De Legione Manlianâ Quæstio ex Livio desumta, et rei militaris Romanæ studiosis proposita. In this, by means of an ingenious emendation, he reconciled the apparently conflicting statements of Livy and Polybius respecting the legion. Porson and Heyne gave a general assent to his views. Only four copies of the work are said to have been sold. In the next year Vincent published The Origination of the Greek Verb: an Hypothesis, followed in 1795 by The Greek Verb Analysed: an Hypothesis in which the Source and Structure of the Greek Language in general is considered. He found the reasons for the inflections of the verbs in their derivations from "a simple and very short original verb signifying to do or exist", which being afterwards subjoined to radicals, denoting various actions and modes of being, formed their tenses, modes, and other variations. Vincent had to defend his work against the charges of insufficient research and plagiarism (from a writer in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica'), advanced in the Hermes Unmasked of Thomas Gunter Browne. His views did not succeed in holding their ground.[1]
Geographer
But ancient geography was the subject which Vincent made his chief study. In 1797 he issued his commentary on
Gleanings from the Asiatick Researches of the learned Dr. Vincent, was privately printed in 1813 by Joseph Thomas Brown. Vincent also contributed notes to Gibbon's Inquiry into the Circumnavigation of Africa, and to the Classical Journal articles on Ancient Commerce, China as known to Classic Authors, The Geography of Susiana, and Theophilus an African Bishop. For the first series of the British Critic, conducted by his friend Nares, he wrote several important reviews, and, in connection with the Troad controversy, attacked the views of Jacob Bryant, whom he charged with falsifying passages in Diodorus Siculus. Vincent was also a frequent contributor to The Gentleman's Magazine.[1]
Personal life
In 1771, William Vincent married Hannah Wyatt. They had two sons, William St Andrew Vincent (1772-1849), thereafter Rector of Bolney and prebendary of Chichester; and George Giles Vincent (1774-1859), who became a solicitor, writer of philosophy, and served Westminster Abbey as Chapter Clerk for 50 years.[6]
William St Andrew, after the Dean's death, published a book of his sermons, "Sermons on Faith, Doctrines and Public Duties," in 1817, followed by a second volume in 1836.[7]
George Giles Vincent paid tribute to him as "one of the best of parents, and best of men... In practice, he was most conscientious in performance of his clerical duties, but he despised both the parade and the affectation of piety."[8]
Death and appreciation
Vincent died at Islip on 21 December 1815, and was buried in St Benedict's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, on 29 December 1815.[9] His monument, between those of South and Busby, bears a Latin inscription composed by himself. In 1771 he married Hannah, fourth daughter of George Wyatt, chief clerk of the vote office, House of Commons. She died on 17 February 1807, leaving children. There is a mural tablet to her with an inscription by her husband in the north transept of the abbey.[1]
William Beloe thought Vincent one of the soundest scholars in Europe, an opinion corroborated by Thomas James Mathias in Pursuits of Literature (third dialogue). The dramatist Richard Cumberland also speaks of him in high terms in his Memoirs. The poet William Cowper made an English translation of some Latin verses written by Vincent, when second master at Westminster, on his predecessor Pierson Lloyd. A French version of Vincent's great work on ancient navigation was made under the sanction of Napoleon by M. Billecoq; and in Germany, where his works were well known, his scholarship was recognised by a degree from Göttingen in 1814. "Next to Rennell, and beyond him in some respects," says Sir Clements Markham, "Vincent was the greatest comparative geographer of his time."[1]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Norgate, G. Le G. (1885–1900). Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. .
- ^ "Vincent, William (VNCT757W)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ISBN 1871348129.
- ProQuest 8133752.(subscription required)
- ProQuest 8201333.(subscription required)
- ^ "William Vincent & Family".
- ^ Trowles, Tony, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, available at https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/28316
- ^ Vincent, George Giles (1823). An explanation of morality, and of good and evil, or the laws or rules of human actions generally.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28316. Retrieved 29 October 2008. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
External links
- Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Vincent, William". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.