Author: Holmes, Robert
Biography:
HOLMES, Robert (1748-1805: ODNB)
He was baptised at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on 30 Nov. 1748, the son of Edmund Holmes, gentleman, and his wife Mary (maiden name possibly Vernon). Educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford (matric. 1767, BA 1770, Fellow 1770, MA 1774, BD 1787, DD 1789), he was ordained deacon in 1771 and priest in 1772. On 23 Apr. 1783 he married, at Oxford, Mary Gray of Reading; they do not appear to have had children, but there are reports of his having been good company and an enthusiastic sportsman (i.e. hunter of small game). He held the College rectory of Stanton St. John from 1782 until his death, adding lesser livings and rising through the church ranks to become Dean of Winchester in 1804. At Oxford he gave the Bampton Lectures in 1782 and was Professor of Poetry from 1783 to 1793. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1797. Besides the poems listed here, he published numerous sermons and pamphlets on church doctrine. His major work, however, was never printed, and he did not live to complete it: in 1788 he undertook a full collation of versions of the Septuagint for a new edition of the Greek Old Testament. The conditions of the financial support required for the project included an annual report and the deposit of the year’s work in the Bodleian Library. After his death at home in St. Giles, Oxford, on 12 Nov. 1805, the work was taken over by James Parsons and completed in 1827, but it remained in manuscript for want of funding. (ODNB 15 Oct. 2022; “Holmes, Robert,” Wikipedia 15 Oct. 2022; findmypast.co, 15 Oct. 2022; CCEd 15 Oct. 2022)