Author: NOEL, Gerard Thomas
Biography:
NOEL, Gerard Thomas (1782-1851: ODNB)
He was born on 2 Dec. 1782, at Exton, Rutland, and baptised 31 Dec. at St. George’s, Hanover Square, Westminster, the second of perhaps as many as eighteen children of Gerard Noel Edwardes (1759-1838)--who would assume the name Noel in 1798 and inherit a baronetcy in 1813--and his wife Lady Diana Middleton, second Baroness Barham (1762-1823). They had married in 1780. He was educated at Langley, Kent, and proceeded to Trinity College Cambridge (Pensioner 1801, BA 1805, MA 1808). He also entered Lincoln’s Inn in 1798 but never practised law. He was ordained deacon (1806) and priest (1807). He was briefly curate at Radwell, Herts. (1806-7), before becoming vicar of Rainham, Kent (1807-26), then curate of Richmond, Surrey (1826-34). He was a prebendary at Winchester Cathedral from 1834 and vicar of Romsey, Hants. (1840-51). He married Charlotte Sophia O’Brien (1787-1838), daughter of Sir Lucius O’Brien, on 1 Feb. 1806 at Dromoland Castle, co. Clare, Ireland, and probably previously at her mother’s house in Dublin. They had eight children. She died at The Close, Winchester, on 31 Aug. 1838. He then married Susan Kennaway (1812-90), daughter of Sir John Kennaway, on 15 May 1841, at St. James’s, Talaton, Devon, but there was no issue. He died at Romsey on 24 Feb. 1851 and was buried on 3 Mar. at Romsey Abbey, where there is still a monumental tomb. Apart from the work listed here, he edited A Selection of Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship (1810) which went through several editions. In his lifetime, however, he was better known as an evangelical and his Brief Enquiry into the Prospects of the Church of Christ (1828) argued for the coming sovereignty of Christ over increasingly liberal and secular trends. His Fifty Sermons for the Use of Families (1826-27) and the posthumous Sermons, Preached at Romsey (1853) were similarly Calvinist and (pre)millennial but argued for church unity. (ODNB 17 Jan. 2023, Lewis 2: 831; Miller, 371; CCEd 17 Jan. 2023; Limerick Gazette 11 Feb. 1806; SJC 4 Sept. 1838; Bath Chronicle 20 May 1841; Illustrated London News 22 Mar. 1851; Morning Post 18 Feb. 1890) AA