Robert Witham

Robert Witham (1667–1738) was an English Roman Catholic college head and biblical scholar.[1]

Life

He was the seventh son of George Witham, of Cliffe Hall, and brother to George Witham, the bishop; his mother was Grace (Catherine), daughter of Sir Marmaduke Wyvill, 2nd Baronet of Constable Burton Hall.[2] Educated at Douay College with two of his brothers, he studied Universal Philosophy under Edward Hawarden and the treatise De Incarnatione with his brother, George. On 22 September 1694, he was ordained as a priest.

On the death of Bishop James Smith, in 1711, Witham was made vicar-general of the Northern District by Bishop Bonaventure Giffard, the senior bishop, and filled that office till the death of Edward Paston in 1715, when he was nominated to the presidency of Douay College.

At that time the College was 40,000 florins in debt. Witham reached Douay on 28 October 1715, having in his company John Savage, 5th Earl Rivers (a priest), who went over with a plan to reside there. At that time there were 92 people in the College, and in 1717 this increased to 115. He governed the College for nearly 23 years, and died there on 18 May 1738.

Works

Witham was the author of:[1]

  • Theologia, Douay, 1692, the theses which he maintained on being created D.D.
  • Annotations on the New Testament of Jesus Christ, in which, 1. The literal sense is explained according to the Expositions of the ancient Fathers. 2. The false Interpretations, both of the ancient and modern Writers, which are contrary to the received Doctrine of the Catholic Church, are briefly examined and disproved. 3. With an Account of the chief differences betwixt the Text of the ancient Latin Version and the Greek in the printed Editions and Manuscripts, [Douay], 1730, 2 vols. This work contains a translation of the New Testament. The preface was reprinted in the appendix to Rhemes and Doway (1855) by Henry Cotton, the annotations at Manchester in 1813 in Oswald Syers's Bible. A reply appeared under the title of Popery an Enemy to Scripture (1736), by James Serces, vicar of Appleby, Lincolnshire.

Notes

  1. 1 2  Lee, Sidney, ed. (1900). "Witham, Robert". Dictionary of National Biography. 62. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. ↑ Carter, Philip. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/29802. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1900). "Witham, Robert". Dictionary of National Biography. 62. London: Smith, Elder & Co.


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