Author: Burgess, Thomas
Biography:
BURGESS, Thomas (1756-1837: ODNB)
By all accounts Burgess was a quiet, retiring scholar who, despite becoming a bishop, preferred to keep in the background. He is identified by HL and ESTC as the likely author of Bagley, A Descriptive Poem; the other candidate for authorship is Alexander Crowcher Schomberg, q.v. Given the different characters and interests of the two men, the latter is much more credible. Bagley, a burlesque poem that deliberately plays on the title of Thomas Maurice’s (q.v.) Hagley, is a companion piece to Schomberg’s Ode on the Present State of English Poetry (1779). Burgess is not known to have written other verse or satire and Harford records that no copy of Bagley was found in his library after his death. Burgess was born on 18 Nov. 1756 at Odiham, Hampshire, to William Burgess, a grocer, and his wife Elizabeth Harding. He was educated at Winchester College where he is recorded as first becoming a scholar in 1767. He matriculated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on 14 Mar. 1775 (BA 1778, MA 1782, Fellow 1783, BD 1791) and became a gifted Greek scholar. He was ordained in 1784 and became chaplain to Shute Barrington, Bishop of Salisbury. When Barrington was translated to Durham, Burgess accompanied him but, preferring a quiet life, he was made rector of Winston, County Durham, in 1795. He married Margery Bright on 1 Oct. 1799 in Durham; they had no children. In 1803 his life dramatically changed when he was appointed Bishop of St. David’s, a sprawling diocese in urgent need of reform. Among the challenges that Burgess took on was the establishment of St. David’s College in Lampeter, Cardiganshire; it opened in 1827, two years after he had been translated to Salisbury. Burgess died after a stroke at Southampton on 19 Feb. 1837 and he was buried in Salisbury Cathedral on 27 Feb. He left his extensive library to St. David’s College. Burgess served as the first president of the Royal Society of Literature and he published extensively—ODNB claims that he wrote over a hundred publications. (ODNB 10 July 2023; J. S. Harford, The Life of T. Burgess [1840]; Thomas Maurice, Memoir of the Author of “Indian Antiquities [1822]; Winchester College Archives; ESTC; HL)