The History of the Family of
DRURY
In the Counties of Suffolk and Norfolk
From the Conquest
By Arthur Campling, London, 1937
CHAPTER IV.
Drury of Leziate, co.
Norfolk
On the death 11 May 1634 of Roger Drury, the last of the name at
ROUGHAM, the representation of the family devolved on JOHN DRURY,
third son of Sir Robert Drury and Elizabeth (Drury) his wife, who
married Dorothy, daughter of Edward Barnes of Soham, co. Cambs,
and had purchased HOLT HOUSE in LEZIATE, co. Norfolk from Jasper
Blake of Wimbotsham in April 1631, the sale being the cause of a
suit in Chancery the following year to determine what lands went
with the house. John Drury died 19 July 1653, aged about 73,
being described on his monument in Ashwicken Church as son and
heir of Sir Robert Drury of Rougham, co. Suffolk, knight. His
will dated 19 August 1650 was shortly as follows:
The children of John and Dorothy were John, only son and heir, Dorothy, born 1620 married to Samuel Nash of Brancaster, co. Norfolk, and Elizabeth born 1629.
JOHN DRURY, son and heir, born 1626, succeeded at HOLT HOUSE and entered his pedigree at the Visitation of Norfolk 1664. He married twice, firstly Elizabeth, daughter and heir of George Fowler of Weeting, co. Norfolk, esquire; and secondly in 1684 Elizabeth, daughter of Isaac Jurin of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, London, merchant. By his first wife he had issue GEORGE, son and heir, William, who went to India, Elizabeth and Dorothy.
John Drury conveyed by fine 9 Feb. 1683/4 to Robert North, gent and William Jeanes, gent the Holt House property consisting of six messuages, gardens and orchards, 400 acres land, 90 acres meadow, 720 acres pasture, 400 acres of broom and heath &c. in Leziate, Ashwicken, Holt, East Winch, Middleton, Mintly, Bawsey, etc. Following this sale he married his second wife. Some proceedings in Chancery in 1685 describe the negotiations for the marriage.
That in or about January 1684 Your Orator (John Drury of Holthouse co. Norfolk, esq.) became acquainted with one John Hooke of parish of St. Bride, London and (blank) his wife and often coming to see them at their house in White Friers where they then lived and having frequently talked to them of his estate which amounted to above l 500 p.a. of inheritance besides considerable personal estate and knowing your Orator to be unmarried and whose occasions for the better Government of his famelie might necessarily require him to marry" The said John Hooke & (blank) his wife proposed to Your Orator that they knew of person of good quality and estate &c. that would be a good wife for Your Orator.
That Your Orator was assured that the "Lady" had of her own estate at least l 4000 left to her by her grandfather (not named) of his mother’s side besides other great "expectancys" she had especially from her father &c. &c. and for arranging this marriage said John Hooke and his wife would only require l 40 for every l 1000 said Gentlewoman should have to which Your Orator agreed – Sd. Gentlewoman being at the time unknown to Your Orator. The above agreement being dated 2 February 1684, the amount to be paid at day of marriage between Your Orator and Elizabeth Jurin daughter of Isaack Jurin of London, Merchant.
That Your Orator requires some of the money paid to John Hooke and his wife and Samuel Jackson as his wife’s portion does not amount to l 4000 as stated &c. &c.
The answers of John Hooke and Mary his wife and Samuel Jackson Defendants.
That becoming acquainted with the Complainant Mary Hooke he informed her that he was a widower and had several children. And being desirous to marry a second wife to enable him to manage his family &c.
That the marriage took place about 20 February last &c. the Defdts denying the statements of said Plaintiff &c.
John Drury died about the year 1689. His son and heir was George Drury, born 1657, but the estate having been sold to pay debts contracted by his father, his inheritance was little, as is shown in the pleadings in a Chancery suit 18 October 1706.
The Answer of Sir John Turner Knt. That complainant’s father became insolvent and was forced to take a Warder’s Place in the Tower for a livelihood where (as this Defendant is informed) he died and that this Complainant being in a very mean condition sheltered himself in the Fryers for several years (as this Defdt. Has heard) And that, the other son William Drury some short time after the execution of said bond went to the West Indies where (as this Defdt. has been informed) he became a "Buckaneere but whether he is now living or dead Your Deftdt does not know &c."
GEORGE DRURY married first a Sussex heiress, Mary, daughter and eventually sole heir of John Racton of Walberton, co. Sussex, gent. The marriage took place at St. James, Duke’s Place, London 14 July 1681. The family of Racton had been settled at Walberton from 1500 and were the lay Rectors of that parish. John Racton’s will was dated 3 August 1664, and gives to Elinor his wife his Parsonage of Walberton and Glebe and Tithes for life, remainder to Son William Racton. William Elson of parish of Oving, co. Sussex, Esq. held said Parsonage and lands in trust for Testator that he grant and assign said Parsonage and Lease to brother-in-law Henry Edmonds, Gent, George Edmonds and Rob. Edmonds Gent. in trust for Wife and Son as aforesaid. Bequest to daughter Mary Racton of messuage and lands at Binsted, co. Sussex for remainder of terms upon which property is held. To daughters Jane and Elizabeth Racton lands meadows pastures &c. at Binsted. To daughter Elinor Racton Messuage and lands at Binsted.
Mary Racton was a cousin of Samuel Nash of Brancaster, co. Norfolk, who married Dorothy Drury, her husband’s aunt. Being an heiress, she was the means of restoring to some extent the family fortunes of the Drurys, which had been much impaired in the time of George Drury’s father. Some part of his wife’s estate had been alienated by fine Michaelmas 1684, by which George Drury gent. and Mary, his wife, conveyed to Susan Salter, widow, a moiety of the Rectory of Walberton and of all tithes there during the life of Elinor Nash, which Elinor was Mary’s mother, widow of John Racton and remarried to Thomas Nash of Walberton.
The christian name of Elinor was brought into the Drury family by this marriage, and its devolution through eleven generations is as follows:
Elinor, daughter of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, married before 1431 Thomas, lord de Rose, their grand-daughter, Elinor de Ros married Sir Robert Manners, ancestor of the Dukes of Rutland, and their grand-daughter, Elinor Manners was wife to John Bourchier, earl of Bath. Margaret Manners, sister to Elinor, married Sr. Henry Strangeways, knight and has a daughter Elinor, wife of William Meux of Kingston in the Isle of Wight. Isabel sister of William Meux married William Bethell of Hyde, co. Hants, and had a daughter Elinor Bethel and a grand-daughter Elinor Edmonds. William Edmonds their grandson was father of Elinor wife of Jahn Racton, who in turn named a daughter Elinor, as did George Drury. The last named Elinor Drury became wife of George pitt of St. Clement Danes, London.
George Drury was of the Inner Temple, gent., and made his will 25 Feb. 1716/7 (proved 22 Jan. 1719/20) naming his wife and son Robert.
ROBERT DRURY, only son of George Drury and Mary Racton, had issue by Susanna his wife, besides a daughter Elizabeth, a second son Robert Drury baptized at St. Bride’s, Fleet Street, London 28 December 1713 and a third son William baptized there 1 June 1716. William died before 3 October 1735, when his brother Robert proved his will as sole executor. Robert Drury, the second son, was a dramatist and comedian, and died unmarried being buried at St. Peter’s, Colchester 3 November 1741.
THOMAS DRURY, the eldest son of Robert Drury and Susanne, was baptized at St. Clement Danes, London 1729, and died 1805 having had issue of Elizabeth Hilton his wife two sons, Joseph and Mark, both clerics, as were Joseph Drury’s descendants to the third generation, the three having the rare distinction, as father, son and grandson, of notice in the Dictionary of National Biography.
Thomas Drury was acquainted with John Wesley and often entertained him at his house.
JOSEPH DRURY, the elder son of Thomas, was the famous Headmaster of Harrow School; and the account of him in the Dictionary of National Biography is as follows:
JOSEPH DRURY (1750-1834)
Headmaster of Harrow school, son of Thomas Drury, the head of the senior branch of the Drury family, which settled after the conquest at Thurston, Suffolk; and afterwards resided at Rougham, Suffolk and Leziate in Holt, co. Norfolk, was born in London on 11 Feb. 1750; was admitted scholar of Westminster in 1765, and was elected to Trinity College Cambridge in 1768. He found himself unable to continue his residence at Cambridge through lack of means, and in 1769, on the recommendation of Dr. Watson, afterwards Bishop of Llandaff, he obtained an assistant mastership at Harrow school under Dr. Summer. On the appointment of Dr. Heath to be the headmaster, Drury was almost persuaded to join in the secession of Samuel Parr who set up an opposition school at Stranmore, taking with him one of the undermasters and several boys; he decided to remain loyal to the ancient foundation, became one of Heaths most efficient assistants, and on 5 Aug. 1775 married his youngest sister, Louisa, daughter of Benj. Heath D.C.J. On the resignation of Dr. Heath in 1785 Drury, then in his thirty sixth year, was elected to succeed him. He graduated B.D. in 1784 and D.D. in 1789. He held the mastership for twenty years. When Heath left, the number of the boys was a little over 200, a slight diminution took place during Drury’s earlier years of office and in 1796 the numbers were only 139. After a period of depression the school increased rapidly under his management, and in 1803 number 345 boys, among whom were many who afterwards became famous, and an extraordinarily large number of the nobility for the size of the school. This increase, which marks an epoch in the life of the school, must be ascribed mainly to the character of the headmaster. As a teacher, Drury was eminently successful, and while he insisted on scholarship, taught his boys to appreciate classical literature, and encouraged Latin and English composition both in prose and verse, and the practice of public recitations.
His influence over his boys may be judged by the feelings he inspired in such a difficult pupil as Lord Byron. Though he was a firm disciplinarian, the boys considered him a kind master. They knew that he was sincerely anxious for their welfare, and they admired his dignified manners and easy address. Byron speaks most warmly of him in a note to Childe Harold canto 4 st. 75, and under the name of Probus in Childish Recollections and lines on a change of masters in Hours of idleness. He appears to have been the first head master who exempted the higher forms from flogging; he disliked flogging, and the system of monitorial caning seems to have grown up in his time. The ill health of his wife and his own desire for rest and country pursuits led him to resign the head mastership in 1805; he retired to Dawlish, Devon, where he had already bought an estate called Cockwood, and there occupied himself in farming his land, and the pursuits of a country gentleman, and the duties of a magistrate. He became acquainted with Charles Kean the elder when acting in Exeter, 1810-1, went to see him act in different characters night after night, warmly admired his talents, and helped to establish him at Drury Lane Theatre.
For some years he was vicar of Aldwinkle, Northants; he did not reside there, and held the living on condition of resigning it to a son of the patron, Lord Lilford; his only other preferment was the prebend of Dultincote in Wells Cathedral, to which he was instituted in 1812. He died at Cockwood on Jan. 9, 1834, at the age of 84, and was buried at St. Leonards, Exeter.
Drury left three sons, all in holy orders; Henry Joseph Drury, for 41 years assistant master of Harrow, the father of Rev. Benj. Heath Drury, late assistant master of Harrow, and afterwards President of Caius College, Cambridge; Benjamin Heath Drury, assistant master of Eton; and Charles Drury, rector of Pontesbury, Shropshire, and one daughter, Louisa Heath, the wife of John Herman Merivale, Commissioner of Bankruptcy.
Dean Merivale says of him in his Autobiography:
"My Grandfather, Dr. Joseph Drury, had been a master of Harrow school and retired with a comptent fortune to the place he had long been preparing for the retreat of his old age. Very beautiful were the plantations, very comfortable the house, which lay on the verge of the estuary of the Exe. Nothing could be more charming than the rising of the spring tide of a fine morning up to the low boundary wall before our windows. The place has long been sold, the house pulled down, the railroad driven between its site and those tidal waters, the walks in the grounds are almost obliterated, and the seats and arbors which decked it have all utterly perished. The woods have grown and outgrown all proportion, but neither the hand of man nor of nature can destroy the glorious prospect over land and sea and estuary which there are none now to appreciate and enjoy. Dr. Drury was a good scholar, a man of much taste and refinement both in mind and manners, of peculiar suavity and grace and deportment. He had had, I suppose, enough of boys society, and was not very accessible to me, though to Herman’s genius he unbent with love and admiration.
Mrs. Drury was an exceedingly clever woman. She had been the soul of the old establishment at Harrow, but her health had suffered from a lingering ailment which deprived her of the sight of one eye (over which she wore a forbidding green shade), and her lively temper was in her old age a little soured.
"A story is told of Theodore Hook being urged the first evening of his arrival at Harrow, by the big bully Lord Byron, to throw a stone at Mrs. Drury’s window. He did so and broke the glass. Next morning when Mrs. Drury appeared with her green shade – There! said Byron, you’ll catch it; you have knocked out her eye."
A writer in the "Gentleman’s Magazine" March 1835, ended a biography of Dr. Joseph Drury in these words:
"It is to be lamented, though often requested, that he could never be prevailed on to sit for his bust or his portrait. He would always assign some whimsical excuse or other; but it is certain that among other proofs of his singular good sense and sterling merit he was no less remarkable (or modesty concerning himself than for a generosity and a certain happy sagacity in being the first to bring out to notice the latent merit of others. It was this excellent man who first discovered the genius of Kean the tragedian, and who fixed him at Drury Lane. It is true the genius of Kean became fatal to its own possessor; the sunshine of universal admiration was too much for him; but if anything could save a man from his own weakness, or in spite of himself, the anxious and reiterated, the most pathetic and parental remonstrances of Dr. Drury were not wanting. In the absence, however, of all assistance of record from the arts of sculpture and painting, we may find many a worthy reminiscence of him, of his figure and mien (especially when robed) of his truly Grecian head and features, in several of the antique marbles and medals. In Raphaels School of Athens at the Vatican I was always reminded of him whenever I contemplated the figure of Plato. And I remember, when a boy, reading Tom Jones, Drury, that model for youth to form itself by, as well as its guardian and preceptor, always served in my imagination for Allworthy; and only that Drury made his own fortune, it might alike have been said of both, in the words of Fielding, ‘he was the favourite of nature and of fortune’. But the former proved to be more favourable to him. For nature had endowed him with an agreeable and dignified mien and countenance, a strong constitution (with length of days, though this belongs as much to fortune), a solid understanding well stored with knowledge of men and books; and what is best of all, a benevolent, virtuous, and unaffectedly religious heart."
The Rev. HENRY JOSEPH DRURY, eldest son of the Head Master of Harrow, was like his father the subject of an article in the Dictionary of National Biography, as follows:
Scholar, son of the Rev. Joseph Drury by Louisa, daughter of Benjamin Heath, D.C.L., of Exeter, he was born at Harrow on 27 ap. 1778 and educated at Eton and Kings College, Cambridge (B.A.1801 M.A. 1804), of which society he was afterwards a fellow. Drury became under master, and then master of the lower school at Harrow, and among his pupils was Lord Byron (vide a letter from Byron to Drury dated 18 Oct,. 1814 in Moore’s Life of Lord Byron).
In 1820 he was presented to the rectory of Fingest co. Bucks. He died at Harrow on 5th March 1841. By his wife, Caroline, daughter of A. W. Taylor of Boreham Wood, Herts., he had a son, Archdeacon Henry Drury.
Drury had a great reputation in his day as a classical scholar, but contented himself with editing selections from the classics for the use of Harrow school. He also formed a most valuable library of the Greek classics, both printed editions and manuscripts, which was sold after his death, two parts in 1827 for l 8917 13s. od. and the third in 1837 for l 1693. He was an original member of the Roxburghe Club, London, and contributed to their collection a reprint of Cock Lorells Boke (1817) and the metrical life of St. Robert of Knaresborough (1824) from a manuscript in his possession, which was deciphered and transcribed by Joseph Haslewood the bibliographer. Among Drury’s numerous friends were Dr. Dibdin the bibliographer, who mentions him several times in the Bibliographical Decameron, and Lord Byron. In Moore’s Life of Byron are to be found several letters from the poet to his former tutor written in affectionate terms and without much regard to the propriety usually preserved in the correspondence with a devine. During the period that Drury was master, he filled far the largest space of all his colleagues in the eyes of the Harrow men. Both in the school and generally throughout academic society he was acknowledged as a man of high classical attainments, of refined taste and critical judgment, as far as such qualities could be exercised in the functions of a teacher of boys. But he was still more eminent in his capacity for directing and influencing his pupils, in imparting to them his own love for the subjects of his teaching, and exciting them to follow his lead and imbibe a portion of his spirit. His house was always crowded with boarders, and beyond his own house he attracted numerous pupils from others, till his pupil or preparation room was attended sometimes by as many as ninety boys. When he sallied thence to hear the lessons of his school-form, he conducted for several years the Upper and Lower Shell combined together, to the number of sixty or more in the long garret at the top of the old school-house, pacing it from end to end with his eye upon all, and making every one apprehend that his own turn to be called up was next impending; while his sonorous tones of praise or rebuke caused every ear to tingle, and the rolling waves of his declamation made an impression not soon to be forgotten. The success which attended his tuition was remarkable, and his pupils almost uniformly took the lead in the competitions for prizes and scholarships. His supremacy in this respect was generously admitted by the Head master and by all his associates, while his force of character and promptness in action gave him authority in the general government of the institution. Nevertheless Drury was not a fortunate man. His was the sore mischance of having been put too early into an easy position beneath his abilities. He never had a chance of showing the extent to which his genius might have expanded under harder trials. Among other indiscretions he unhappily yielded to the passion of collecting of books which developed into a genuine bibliomania. As a member of the Roxburge Club, he allowed himself to vie with the great lords who figure as the heroes of Dibdins Memorials, and amassed a library large in the number of volumes, magnificent in their bindings, and singularly rich in the rarest Codices and Principes. Such extravagant indulgence could not fail to hamper his fortunes, and prevent him from making provision for his declining years and the legitimate claims of his family. He was compelled to dispose at last of all these treasures, and to relinquish the reversion of the Cockwood estate, which was sold after the death of his parents. Great as he was among his contemporaries in the scholastic profession, he never rose above the position of an under master, and this he retained to the last, dying at Harrow much broken in health and spirits at the age of 62. Henry Drury married in 1808 Ann Caroline, daughter of Archdale Taylor of Borham Wood, Herts. John Herman Merivale wrote "Harry Drury will, with God’s permission, present to the families of Cockwood and Barton Place the most beautiful woman, without exception, that I ever beheld; and one who, from her unaffected modesty and gentleness of manner, is likely to conciliate affection at least as much as she inspires admiration." Mrs. H. Drury survived her husband many years, and retained the traces of her remarkable beauty to the last.
Oil paintings of Mr. And Mrs. Drury by Mrs. Wm. Carpenter are in the possession of F. S. E. Drury.
The following letter from T. F. Dibdin to Rev. Henry Drury dated 31st March 1818 shows that the members of the Roxburghe club did not neglect their fleshly appetites while pursuing bibliomania:
"My dear Drury, A choice set of the Roxburghers dine at the Clarendon on Saturday next the 7th, inst. which would be still choicer if you joined them – at six as near as possible – Dicky Heber in the chair. Fail not to show your Attic face upon the ground floor. Yrs. Ever T. F. D."
The menu on this occasion was:
POTAGES – A la puree d’asperges. Giblet.
POISSONS – Merlans au gratin. Rougets a la Cardinal. Turbot. Saumon a la Tartare.
RELIEVES – Quartier de’agneau. Poulet et langue a la jardiniere.
ENTREES – Saute de volaille a la belle vue. Cotellettes de mouton a la Lyonaise. Filet de boeuf piue a la Napolitaine. Croustarde a la Reine a la Polonaise. Ris de veau biggare aux truffes. Tendons d’agneau pane aux concombres.
ROTIS – Ducklings
ENTRMETS – Crème de groseille decoree. Le macedoine de fruit. Artichaut a l’ltalienne. Asperges. Mayonaise d’homard. Prawns. Gateaux au ris aux abricots vert. Le meringue aux compotte d’oranges.
RELIEVES – Adelaide sandwiches. Boudin a la Nesselrode.
HENRY DRURY (1812-63) is also noticed in the Dictionary of National Biography. ARCHDEACON of WILTS, eldest son of Henry Joseph Drury, (1778-1841) by his wife Caroline, daughter of A. W. Taylor of Boreham Wood, Herts., and grandson of Joseph Drury (1750-1834), he was born at Harrow 11 May 1812. After passing through Harrow with distinction he was admitted minor pensioner of Caius College, Cambridge 14 June 1831, and began residence in the following October. In 1833 he won the Brown medal for the Latin ode, and in 1835 that for the epigrams. An eye complaint prevented further academic successes as an undergraduate. In 1837 he took the ordinary B.A. Degree, proceeding M.A. in 1840. In 1838 he became classical lecturer at Caius College, but having been ordained, he left Cambridge in 1839 to take sole charge of Alderley, Gloucestershire, a curacy which he exchanged the following year for that of Bromham, Wiltshire.
Drury, together with some friends, projected and published the Arundines Cami, a collection of translations into Latin and Greek verse by different Cambridge men. The first edition was published in a beautiful form in 1841, and four subsequent editions appeared during Drury’s lifetime; a sixth, after his death, was edited by Mr. H. J. Hodgson in 1865. These successive editions contained several new pieces. Drury became rector of Alderley in 1843, and two years later of Bremhill with Foxham and Highway, Wiltshire, a preferment which he received from Dr. Denison, bishop of Salisbury, to whom, and his successor in the see, Dr. Hamilton, he was examining chaplain. In 1855 he was installed prebendary of Shipton in Salisbury Cathedral, was appointed Chaplain to the House of Commons by Mr. Speaker Denison in 1857, and became Archdeacon of Wilts in July 1862. He died 25 Jan. 1863, after two days illness. On Dec. 1843 he married Amelia Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the Rev. Giles Daubeney, rector of Lydiard Tregooze, Wilts. His sole surviving son is Mr. F. S. E. Drury.
After taking holy orders, Mr. Drury proved himself a sound theologian and a valuable assistant to the Bishop of his diocese, an earnest preacher, and an active parish priest. As a friend and companion he was most genial and affectionate, possessed of lively wit and humour, full of anecdote and badinage, but tempered with excellent tact and judgment, all combined with modesty and absence of self assertion.
Another and fuller description of the personality of Archdeacon Drury is as follows:
"Picture to yourself a man about the meridian of life, say fifty, but looking at any rate at first sight several years younger; of the middle height, slender in figure, and latterly almost too thin for health; remarkable for the smallness of the hands, feet and head; the latter beautifully set on, and the whole man moulded in perfect symmetry and proportion, promising the greatest amount of bodily activity, though not perhaps denoting an enduring constitution; a fair complexion, a perfectly formed face which would possibly have been open to the charge of a certain effeminacy of beauty had not the thoughtful brow and a few slight marks, the effects of the smallpox, redeemed it from this danger, and given to it the vigorous look of manliness and strength; a lively expression, eyes sparkling with animation and lighted up with intelligence, a mouth showing firmness and decision, a prompt step, a frank and cheerful presence. Picture this, and you faintly see before you the editor of the Arundines Cami and one whom the Church of England and thousands of sorrowing friends have freshly mourned. Pursue the wearer of this outward form into his daily life, his occupations, his recreations, his work, and as far as we dare lift the sacred veil, into his friendships, his family, his retirement, his devotion, and you find a character and a man corresponding with the exterior which I have attempted imperfectly to describe. From his youth a scholar and a ripe one. Known far and wide for his literary attainments, for the elegance of this taste and his diligence in its pursuit, these things were yet after all but among the lesser claims upon his friends regard. He seems to have attained to the mastery of the three hinges on the gate of life – ‘self-reverence, self-knowledge, self control’, while his kindliness of nature and power of sympathy enabled him to enter in no common measure – into the feelings of others. Thus retaining the friendships of his school days at Harrow, and his later life at Cambridge, he made also new friends every year he lived, and though mixing with the highest class of English society, ever adorning, enlightening, and delighting it by his rare combination of social qualities, his fund of anecdote, his wit and humour, shrewd remark, and sound judgment, he never lost the playfulness and simplicity of early youth. While receiving fresh acknowledgements of his ability, and promotion to fresh posts of honour and usefulness, he yet escaped all unseemly self-exaltation and never relaxed in continuous patient work.
A sound divine, an excellent and much admired preacher, a careful parish priest, who at great expense restored his parish Church from his private fortune, a good speaker and a man of such prominence and promise that it is no more than truth to say there was no eminence in the Church’s prizes and honours which he might not have reached, he was yet ever accustomed to value most, homely pleasures and old friends.
In disposition most genial, in temper exquisite
(I do not ever remember to have seen him ruffled in a friendship
of twenty-five years): ‘He was a man, take him for all in
all, we shall not look upon his like again.’ The name of
Drury is a household word with half the intellect of the kingdom.
Henry Drury inherited with the name, the pre-eminence as
classical scholars of his family – a profound learning which
was blended with buoyant wit and freshness. At school he obtained
the Peel Medal, and nearly all the ‘blue ribbons’ of
Harrow, and passed on to Cambridge with the fame of one equal to
the high standard of his forefathers. There the failure of his
health, and consequent loss of eyesight for a time, prevented him
from going out in honours at the time required, but in token of
his fame he was nevertheless selected to be classical lecturer of
his College. As Chaplain of the House of Commons, he was thrown
into close acquaintance and intimacy with the most distinquished
members of the House, and we are bold to say that there was never
a more popular Chaplain."
