Percy, Thomas (1756-1782)

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VENN
Adm. pens. at EMMANUEL, Dec. 9, 1769; D.D. 1770. From Christ Church, Oxford, whence he had matric. July 7, 1746, as Piercy; B.A. (Oxford) 1750; M.A. (Oxford) 1753. [S. of Arthur, grocer, of Bridgnorth, Shropshire. B. there, Apr. 13, 1729. School, Bridgnorth Grammar.] Ord. deacon (Hereford) 1751; priest, June, 1753. V. of Easton-Mauduit, Northants., 1753-82. R. of Wilby, 1756-82. Chaplain to the Duke of Northumberland, 1765. Chaplain to the King, 1769. Dean of Carlisle, 1778-82. Bishop of Dromore, 1782-1811. Married, 1759, Anne, dau. of Barton Gutteridge, of Desborough, Northants.; she was appointed nurse to Prince Edward, afterwards Duke of Kent, in 1771. Edited Surrey's Poems. Author of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry; The Household Book of the Earl of Northumberland in 1512; Northern Antiquities; The Hermit of Warkworth; A New Translation of the Song of Solomon; A Key to the New Testament; etc. The publication of Reliques, which ‘made an epoch in the history of English literature,’ arose out of his discovery of a folio MS. (lying dirty in a bureau in the house of a friend, and ‘being used by the maids to light the fire’) which contained copies in an early seventeenth-century hand of many old poems and ballads. His portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Died Sept. 30, 1811. Father of Henry (1780). (Al. Oxon.; Northants. Clergy; D.N.B.; G. Mag., 1811, II. 395; C. Brooks, The Percy Letters.)

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