Author: Dale, Thomas
Biography:
DALE, Thomas (1797-1870: 0DNB)
Born into an evangelical family in Pentonville, London, on 22 Aug 1797, he was a son of William Dale, who died soon after Thomas’s birth and his wife, Mary Smith (married 28 Mar. 1789 at St Mary, Islington). He was raised by his maternal grandmother, also an evangelical. He was educated first at Christ’s Hospital School, London, and then at Corpus Christi, Cambridge (BA 1823, MA 1826, DD 1870). At Cambridge, he associated with the influential evangelical preacher Charles Simeon. Ordained deacon in 1822 and priest in 1823, a “high church evangelical,” he held a succession of increasingly prestigious livings and offices, curate of St Michael, Cornhill, assistant preacher and vicar at St Bride, Fleet Street, evening lecturer at St Sepulchre, Snow Hill, lecturer at St Margaret, Lothbury, prebend of St Paul's, canon residentiary and vicar of St Pancras, rector of Therfield, Herts, and dean of Rochester. He was as well an educator, professor of English at University College, London, and later of King’s College, London. At the school he established at Camberwell, one of his pupils was the art critic John Ruskin. He was an exceptionally prolific poet, translator, textual editor, and religious writer. He had success with several of his works—notably The Widow of the City of Nain; and Other Poems—none of which are now read. On 22 Nov. 1819, he married a minor, Emily Jane Richardson, the daughter of a young man he had tutored. He and his wife had numerous children, including the influential High Churchman Thomas Pelham Dale (1821-1841). He died 14 May 1870, at Amen Court, St Paul's, London. (ODNB 23 June 2023; ancestry.com 26 June 2023; CCEd 23 June 2023) JC
Other Names:
- T. Dale