Author: Dupré, Edward
Biography:
DUPRE, Edward (1755-1823: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 31 Mar. 1755 at St. Clement, Jersey, the third of four sons of the rector Jean/John Dupré (1725-83) and Marie Millais (1733-1805), who had married in 1751. Nothing is known of his early education but he proceeded to Exeter College Oxford (matric. 1772, BA 1776, MA 1778, DCL 1786, and Fellow c. 1776-1784). His father and eldest brother, John, were also educated at Exeter College. His brother became headmaster at Berkhamsted school in 1788 and edited the collection of verse by pupils, Musae Berkhamstedienses (1794, 2nd edn. 1799, in this bibliography). He published A Sermon (Oxford 1782) commemorating the Restoration of 1660. On his father’s death in 1783, he succeeded to the living at St. Helier, Jersey, and was also sometime chaplain in the 3rd West Indies Regiment of Foot, garrisoned on Jersey, which enabled his widow, left in distressed circumstances, to claim an army pension. In 1802 he became Dean of Jersey. After the French Revolution, he opposed constitutional reform and the spread of democratic ideas. His only known poem, listed here, celebrated Nelson’s victory at the Nile in 1798. He fell out with his church warden, Jurat Aaron de Ste Croix, a leader of the Rose party, who then sought to establish a second church, St. Paul’s, at St. Helier. The church was built and opened in 1817 but Dupré forbade attendance and excommunicated the priest. The Privy Council ruled that Dupré had authority over the new church and it soon closed. He married Marie Patriarche (1766-1840) on 14 Apr. 1784 at St. Helier. They had seven children. He died on 27 Mar. 1823 at St. Helier and was buried in the family vault on 1 Apr., aged 69. (ancestry.co.uk 26 Dec. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 26 Dec. 2023; CCEd; Jerripedia; Caesarea. The Island of Jersey [1840], 322; OJ 11 Mar. 1786; Stamford Mercury 18 Apr. 1823; GM Apr. 1823, 380) AA