Edward Nares

Edward Nares (26 March 1762 – 23 July 1841) was an English historian and theologian, and general writer.

Edward Nares
Born(1762-03-26)26 March 1762
London, England
Died23 July 1841(1841-07-23) (aged 79)
Biddenden, Kent, England
Resting placeBiddenden parish church
NationalityBritish
EducationWestminster School
Alma materChrist Church, Oxford
OccupationHistorian and theologian
TitleRegius Professor of Modern History
Term1813–1841
PredecessorHenry Beeke
SuccessorThomas Arnold
Spouse(s)Lady Charlotte Spencer

Life

He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He was Fellow of Merton College, Oxford and became in 1813 Regius Professor of Modern History. He was curate of St Peter-in-the-East, Oxford, and then rector of Biddenden from 1798,[1] of New Church, Romney from 1827.[2]

He was Bampton Lecturer in 1805.[3] Orthodox on the Biblical account, he was speculative on the issue of the plurality of worlds.[4]

He wrote for the Anti-Jacobin. His novel Think's-I-to-Myself. A serio-ludicro, tragico-comico tale, written by Think's-I-to-Myself Who? (1811) caused a stir when it appeared and ran into eight editions by 1812.[5]

Family

His father was Sir George Nares. He married Lady Charlotte Spencer, daughter of George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough (an elopement).

Works
  • Sermons Composed for Country Congregations (1803)
  • View of the Evidences of Christianity at the End of the Pretended Age of Reason (1805 Bampton Lectures)
  • Thinks I to Myself (1811)
  • I Says, Says I; A Novel By Thinks-I-To-Myself (1812)
  • Heraldic Anomalies ; or, rank confusion in our orders of precedence. With disquisitions, moral, philosophical, and historical, on all the existing orders of society. By it matters not Who (1823)
  • Elements of General History Ancient and Modern (1825)
  • Memoirs of the Life and Administration of the Right Honourable William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1828) three volumes[6]
  • Man, as known to us theologically and geologically (1834)
  • The History of the Reformation of the Church of England by Gilbert Burnet, 1849 revision

References
  • White, George Cecil A Versatile Professor: Reminiscences of the Rev. Edward Nares (1903)
  • Barber, Madeline J. A Man of Many Parts. Professor or Bishop? The Life of Edward Nares 1762-1841 (2009)

Notes
  1. Like all Wealden villages, Biddenden was practically cut off every winter and sometimes throughout the year when any prolonged rain would turn the roads into a morass of mud. As recently as 1807 the Rev Edward Nares recorded that even with four horses harnessed to his carriage he could travel no more than three miles from his rectory. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 8 February 2001. Retrieved 8 August 2013.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  2. Concise Dictionary of National Biography
  3. …Edward Nares could call on de Luc to support his nearly literal approach in his 1805 Bampton Lectures. However thirty years later Nares had joined the "Anti-geologists". Archived 2 October 2006 at Archive.today
  4. See . He wrote an 1803 pamphlet on the topic. He is mentioned in Michael J. Crowe (1986), The extraterrestrial life debate 1750–1900. The idea of a plurality of worlds from Kant to Lowell.
  5. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney, ed. Lorna J. Clerk (Athens, GA, and London: University of Georgia Press, 1997), p. 134n.
  6. Reviewed (unkindly) by Thomas Macaulay
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