English churchman and writer (1635?1713)
Thomas Sprat
,
FRS
(1635 – 20 May 1713) was an English churchman and writer,
Bishop of Rochester
from 1684.
Life
[
edit
]
Sprat was born at
Beaminster
, Dorset, and educated at
Wadham College, Oxford
, where he held a fellowship from 1657 to 1670. Having taken
orders
he became a
prebendary
of
Lincoln Cathedral
in 1660. In the preceding year he had gained a reputation by his poem
To the Happie Memory of the most Renowned Prince Oliver, Lord Protector
(London, 1659), and he was afterwards well known as a wit, preacher and man of letters.
In 1669 Sprat became
canon
of
Westminster Abbey
, and in 1670
rector
of
Uffington
, Lincolnshire. He was chaplain to
Charles II
in 1676,
curate
and lecturer at
St. Margaret's, Westminster
, in 1679, canon of
Chapel Royal
, Windsor in 1681,
Dean of Westminster
in 1683 and
Bishop of Rochester
in 1684.
He was appointed
Dean of the Chapel Royal
in 1685 and was
Clerk of the Closet
from 1685 to 1687.
[
citation needed
]
Sprat was a member of
James II
's ecclesiastical commission, and in 1688 he read the
Declaration of Indulgence
to empty benches in Westminster Abbey. The suggestion was that he was playing at being
Vicar of Bray
. Although he opposed the motion of 1689 declaring the throne vacant, he assisted at the coronation of
William
and
Mary
. As
Dean of Westminster
he directed
Christopher Wren
's restoration of the abbey.
In 1692 a bizarre attempt was made to implicate Sprat in a plot to restore the deposed king James II. This became known as the "flowerpot plot" because it involved a conspirator?a man named
Robert Young
?forging Sprat's signature on a document, smuggling it into the
Bishop's manor
and hiding the paper under a flowerpot. The authorities were contacted about the document, which led to the Bishop's arrest for high treason and the searching of his house?the forged document was eventually found where Young had said it would be. However, Sprat was soon freed when it became clear that there was no case to answer.
[2]
[3]
[4]
He died of apoplexy in 1713 at the Bishop's Palace in Bromley, Kent and was buried on the south side of St Nicholas' Chapel
[5]
in
Westminster Abbey
.
[6]
The monument is by
Francis Bird
.
[7]
Works
[
edit
]
Sprat's major prose works are the
Observations upon Monsieur de Sorbier's Voyage into England
(London, 1665), a satirical reply to the strictures on Englishmen in
Samuel de Sorbiere
's book
Relation d'un voyage en Angleterre
(Paris, 1664), and a
History of the Royal Society of London
(London, 1667), which Sprat had helped to found. The
History of the Royal Society
elaborates the scientific purposes of the academy and outlines some of the strictures of scientific writing that set the modern standards for clarity and conciseness.
A collection of ten of his sermons was published in 1710.
For his work on the history of science he was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society
in 1663.
[6]
Family
[
edit
]
He married Helen, the daughter of Devereux Wolseley of Ravenstone, Staffordshire and was the father of
Thomas Sprat
,
Archdeacon of Rochester
and Fellow of the Royal Society. Shortly after the elder Sprat's death, his son was made a canon of Westminster Abbey.
[8]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Johnson, p36 ff.
- ^
Clinch, p15 ff.
- ^
Lee, 419 ff.
- ^
'The Abbey Scientists' Hall, A. R. p12: London; Roger & Robert Nicholson; 1966
- ^
a
b
"Fellow's details"
. Royal Society
. Retrieved
17 April
2017
.
- ^
Dictionary of British sculptors 1660-1851 by Rupert Gunnis
- ^
Westminster Abbey ? Thomas Sprat
(Accessed 16 April 2013)
References
[
edit
]
-
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Chisholm, Hugh
, ed. (1911). "
Sprat, Thomas
".
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 736.
- Clinch, George.
Antiquarian Jottings: relating to Bromley, Hayes Keston, and West Wickham, in Kent
(1889).
- Johnson, Samuel.
The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets: Vol. 2
(1821).
- Sprat, Thomas.
History of the Royal Society of London, for the Improving of Natural Knowledge
(London, 1667).
External links
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Deans
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Canons
(current)
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- David Stanton
(Sub-Dean and Canon Treasurer)
- Anthony Ball
(Rector of St Margaret's)
- Jamie Hawkey
(Canon Theologian and Almoner)
- Tricia Hillas
(Canon Steward and Archdeacon, and Speaker's Chaplain)
- Mark Birch (Minor Canon and Precentor)
- Robert Latham (Minor Canon and Sacrist)
- Minor Canon and Chaplain (vacant)
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