Author: Bishop, Samuel
Biography:
BISHOP, Samuel (1731-95: ODNB)
The major source of information about his life for all subsequent accounts is the memoir by the Rev. Thomas Clare which is prefixed to his edition of the verse, The Poetical Works of the Rev. Samuel Bishop (1796). Bishop was born in St. John Street, London, on 21 Sept. 1731, the eldest son of George Bishop, originally from Dorset, and his wife Mary Palmer. On 6 June 1743 he entered Merchant Taylors’ School where he was an able pupil. He matriculated at St. John’s, Oxford, on 28 June 1750 (fellow 1753, BA 1754, MA 1758). Ordained a deacon in 1754 and a priest in 1757, in 1758 he was appointed third under-master at Merchant Taylors’; he rose through the ranks to become headmaster in 1783. In 1763 he married Mary Palmer, a relation of his mother. The exact date of their wedding is unknown but their daughter, Mary Palmer Bishop (d 1825), was baptised on 7 Dec. 1763. The family lived in Suffolk Lane, near the school’s location at the time. He was a diligent headmaster and known among the pupils for wearing an outsized wig. He was appointed rector of Ditton in Kent in 1786 and in 1789 the Merchant Taylors’ Company presented him to the living of St. Martin Outwich in Threadneedle Street in recognition of his long service to the school. Bishop was in poor health, suffering from both gout and, increasingly, pulmonary congestion. He died on 17 Nov. 1795 and was buried at St. Martin Outwich. His widow subsequently married the Rev. T. Clare, his memoirist and the editor of his verse, much of which had remained unpublished in Bishop’s lifetime. (ODNB 8 June 2023; Thomas Clare, “Memoir,” in The Poetical Works of the Rev. Samuel Bishop [1796]; findmypast.co.uk 8 June 2023)