Author: Percy, Thomas
Biography:
PERCY, Thomas (1729-1811: ODNB)
He was baptised on 29 Apr. 1729 at St. Leonard’s, Bridgnorth, Shropshire, the son of Arthur Lowe Percy, a grocer, and Jane Knott, who had married on 14 Apr. 1726 at Sutton Maddock, Shropshire. He attended the Bridgnorth Free School and Newport School before going up to Christ Church College, Oxford (matric. 1746, BA 1750, MA 1753); he was later awarded DD degrees by both Cambridge (1770) and Oxford (1793). He was gifted in languages, not only classical languages and Hebrew but also French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Ordained deacon in 1751 and priest in 1753, he was vicar of Easton Maudit, Northamptonshire (a living in the gift of his college), from 1756 to 1782, and at the same time rector of nearby Wilby. Wilby was in the gift of the earl of Sussex, who appointed Percy his chaplain (1756-67), a role he served also for the duke of Northumberland from 1765 onward. In 1769 he was made one of the chaplains-in-ordinary to George III. On 24 Apr. 1759 (not 1758) he married Anne Gutteridge of Desborough, Northamptonshire, by license. The went on to have six children, of whom however only two survived their parents. Percy’s literary interests and sociability drew him, during visits to London and later by extensive correspondence from his parish, into the ambit of Samuel Johnson and “The Club” in the 1760s. By this time he was publishing verse and translations as well as making learned contributions to his profession such as A Key to the New Testament (1766). Undoubtedly the most popular and most widely influential of all his works was Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, published in three volumes in 1765. Starting in 1757 with a manuscript collection of ballads that was being torn apart to light fires but that he had rescued from a friend’s house, and with the encouragement and collaboration of many members of his scholarly and literary network, Percy created one of the foundational documents of the Romantic movement. It remains in print as a work of imagination despite legitimate questions about the authenticity of the texts. In 1782 Percy became the bishop of Dromore in Ireland and devoted himself mainly to pastoral work. His wife died in 1806 and he followed on 30 Sept. 1811; both were buried in his cathedral. (ODNB 14 Sept. 2023; Alumni Oxonienses; findmypast.com 14 Sept. 2023; CCEd 14 Sept. 2023)
Other Names:
- Dr. Percy
- Percy
- Thos. Percy