Whalley, Thomas Sedgwick (1770-1829)

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VENN
Adm. pens. (age 18) at ST JOHN'S, Apr. 27, 1763. [3rd] s. of the Rev. John (1715), Regius Professor of Divinity and Master of Peterhouse. B. in Cambridge. School, ??minster, Somerset (Mr Davis). ' Matric. Michs. 1763; B.A. 1767; M.A. 1774. Hon. D.D., Edin., 1808. Ord. deacon, 1770; priest (London), Mar. 15, 1772. R. of Hagworthingham, Lincs., 1772-1828. Preb. of Wells, 1777-1826. A condition of his acceptance of Hagworthingham was that, because of its unhealthy situation in the fens, he should not reside; the duties therefore were discharged by a curate. His first wife brought him a fortune, and he then purchased the centre house in The Crescent, Bath, where he entertained with great hospitality. Lived latterly on the Continent. Friend and correspondent of Hannah More, Mrs Piozzi, Mrs Siddons, and Anna Seward. Fanny Burney described him as "immensely tall, thin and handsome, but affected, delicate, and sentimentally pathetic." Wilberforce called him "the true picture of a sensible, wellinformed and educated, polished, old, well-beneficed, nobleman's and gentleman's house-frequenting, literary and chessplaying Divine." Married (1) Jan. 6, 1774, Elizabeth (died 1801), only child of Edward Jones, of Langford Court, Burrington, Somerset (and widow of John Withers Sherwood); (2) May, 1803, Miss Heathcote (died 1807); (3) Oct. 3, 1812, the widow of General Horneck, from whom he later separated. Author, Edwy and Edilda (a poetic tale); The Castle of Montval (a tragedy acted at Drury Lane in 1799); The Fatal Kiss; etc. His letters and journals describing his Continental travels were published in 1863. Died, s.p., Sept. 3, 1828, at La Fleche, France; buried there. Brother of John (1754) and Richard C. (1787). (St John's Coll. Adm., III. 688; D.N.B.)

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