Author: HORNE, George
Biography:
HORNE, George (1730-92: ODNB)
Essays and Thoughts . . . with Poems (1808) is a posthumous work published mainly from Horne’s own manuscript, a commonplace book with the addition of his poems and some of his lighter published contributions to the periodical Olla Podrida. Horne was baptised at Otham, Kent, on 1 Nov. 1730, the son of Anne (Handley) and Samuel Horne. His father, the rector at Otham, was his first teacher. From Maidstone School he went up to University College, Oxford, on a scholarship (matric. 1746, BA 1749). He then migrated to Magdalen College (Fellow 1750, MA 1752, BD 1759, DD 1764) and was ordained deacon in 1753 and priest in 1754. In 1768 he was elected President of Magdalen, and on 22 (not 12) June that year at St. Andrew’s, Holborn, London, he married Felicia Elizabetha Burton (1741-1824), with whom he had three daughters and a happy married life. He served as Vice-Chancellor of Oxford 1776-80 until his appointment as Dean of Canterbury in 1781, but continued in office as President of Magdalen until he accepted the bishopric of Norwich in 1790. He was in declining health, however, and following a stroke he died at Bath on 17 Jan. 1792. By a will made shortly before his death, he left all his possessions to his wife. He was buried in her family’s vault at Eltham (Greenwich). Horne was a popular preacher and a busy polemicist on both academic and religious subjects. Besides sermons, he published against free-thinking and Swedenborgianism. His most frequently republished works were his Commentary on the Book of Psalms (1776) and his Letters on Infidelity (1784). (ODNB 8 Feb. 2025; ancestry.com 8 Feb. 2025; findmypast.com 8 Feb. 2025; Alumni Oxonienses; CCEd 8 Feb. 2025) HJ