Author: MENDENHALL, William
Biography:
MENDENHALL, William (1778-1853: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 11 Dec. 1778 and baptised on 26 Jan. 1779 at Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, the eldest son of James Mendenhall and his wife Mary Holton, who had married in 1777. He married Ann Wood on 25 July 1805 at Bathwick, Bath. They went on to have thirteen children, with many infant deaths. In the same year, he advertised his Academy at 6 Bridge Street, Bath, where he taught "The Elements of English Composition, Merchants’ Accounts, Geography . . . " for a fee of between 15s and 1 guinea a quarter. For most of his life he was a Writing-Master but later combined this with being Librarian at Bath Mechanics’ Institute (which became the Bath Athenaeum in Orange Grove in 1845) from 1839 until his death. He died on 14 Mar. 1853 at 4 Cheap Street, Bath, and was buried at Bath Abbey. His wife survived him and died in 1865. His other known publications include The Young Arithmetician’s Assistant (1813) and The Classification of Words (1813). In the preface to Redemption (1824), he acknowledges that his defence of biblical inspiration and authority against Deists and Freethinkers is a departure from what he had previously been known for. (ancestry.co.uk 18 Nov. 2021; findmypast.co.uk 18 Nov. 2021; Bath Chronicle 5 Sept. 1805, 5 Sept. 1833, 15 June 1837, 19 Mar. 1846, 17 Mar. 1853, 19 Jan. 1865; Gye’s Bath Directory [1819], 78; Hunt’s Directory [1848], 131) AA
Other Names:
- W. M.