Author: Mountain, Jacob
Biography:
MOUNTAIN, Jacob (1749-1825: DCB)
The first Anglican Bishop of Quebec, he was educated to become a pillar of the established church. He was born on 1 Dec. 1749 at Thwaite Hall, Norfolk, and baptised at Thwaite All Saints, Norwich, on 30 Dec., the son of Jacob Mountain (1710-52) and his second wife Ann Postle (d 1776). After an abortive business training in a counting-house, he was sent to Scanning School, East Dereham, where he was a favourite pupil of Robert Potter (q.v.). He was then admitted to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1769 (BA 1774, Fellow 1774, MA 1777, DD 1793), and ordained deacon (1774) and priest (1780). On 18 Oct. 1783 he married Elizabeth Mildred Wale Kentish (d 1836) at Little Bardfield, Essex; they went on to have seven children, of whom three became clergymen and one of those a bishop. Mountain held several church livings, some of them concurrently, before being appointed Bishop of the newly created See of Quebec, a position that made him overseer of both Upper and Lower Canada. He sailed with his family—his own wife and four children, his elder brother Jehosaphat with his wife and three children, and two unmarried sisters—and landed in Quebec in Nov. 1793. He remained in Quebec the rest of his life apart from two extended return visits to England in 1805-8 and 1816-19. A conscientious high churchman, he was successful in many of the missionary aspects of his task, significantly expanding the number of Anglican missions and the number of ministers in them, and creating programs in Canada for the education of priests. He had a fine cathedral dedicated to the Anglican congregation built in Quebec City so that they no longer had to share premises with the more numerous Roman Catholic worshippers. He made regular far-ranging tours of his diocese, some lasting as long as three months. But he failed in his primary goals of weakening the Roman Catholic establishment and having the Church of England designated the state church in Canada. He died on 16 June 1825 at Marchmont, Quebec, and was buried on 20 June in his cathedral, Holy Trinity. Poetical Reveries is a juvenile effort and the only literary work among his publications, which consist mainly of sermons. (DCB 17 July 2023; ODNB 17 July 2023; findmypast.com 17 July 2023)