Skip to main content

Author: Francklin, Thomas

Biography:

FRANCKLIN, Thomas (1721-84: ODNB)

Born at London, he was the son of Richard Francklin, a bookseller with premises at Covent Garden. The name of his mother is not known. He attended Westminster School from 1735 before going to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1739. He earned his BA 1743, MA 1746, and DD 1770. He was ordained deacon in 1746 and priest in 1747. He served as an usher at Westminster School for a time before being appointed Professor of Greek at Cambridge in 1750. He earned some notoriety in November of the same year as a result of an incident in a tavern when he and other former Westminster pupils were celebrating the accession of the school’s founder, Elizabeth I, and resented being ordered to disperse by the university’s proctors. In 1759 Francklin was appointed to a living at Ware and Thundridge, Hertfordshire, and he also held a lectureship at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden; in 1777 he became vicar at Brasted, Kent. He married Mary Venables, the daughter of a London wine merchant, in 1759; they had several children and the eldest, William, became an orientalist (see his entry in the ODNB). Despite being appointed King’s chaplain in 1767 and chaplain to the Royal Academy in 1768, he struggled to support his family and, to that end, wrote for the stage and the periodical press. His plays, The Earl of Warwick (1766), Matilda (1775), and The Contract (1776) were adaptations from French originals. He also published sermons and translations from Greek and Latin, including a much-admired translation of the tragedies of Sophocles (1759). He died at home in Great Queen Street, Westminster. Three volumes of his sermons were issued posthumously to support his children and widow. (ODNB 24 Feb. 2021; CCEd 24 Feb. 2021; Joseph Welch, The List of the Queen’s Scholars of St. Peter’s, Westminster [1852])

 

Books written (3):

Dublin: J. Exshaw, W. Sleater, J. Potts, D. Chamberlaine, J. Williams, W. Wilson, J. Sheppard, J. A. Husband, R. Moncrieffe, R. Marchbank, T. Walker, C. Jenkin, and J. Hillary, 1775