Author: Rudge, James
Biography:
RUDGE, James (1785-1852: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 27 Apri.1785 at Croomhall House, Croomhall, Gloucester, and baptised on 13 June, the son of James Rudge and his wife Betty/Betsey Milledge, who had married at Yate, near Bristol, in 1778. He was educated at Pembroke Hall, Oxford (matric. 1801, BA 1808) and Catherine Hall, Cambridge (MA 1813), and was awarded a DD by Glasgow in 1819. He was ordained deacon in 1808 and was then lecturer at St. Anne’s, Limehouse, London (1809-1830). He also held appointments as a preacher or lecturer at two City of London churches: St. Sepulchre (1821) and St. Lawrence Jewry with St. Mary Magdalen, Milk Street (1821-23). He was later sometime domestic chaplain to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and to the Duke of Kent. He served as rector of Hawkchurch, near Axminster, Dorset, from 1828 until his death. He married Caroline Drane (1793-1869) on 27 Apr. 1812, with the consent of her father, at St. Anne’s, Limehouse. They had two sons and a daughter. In 1851 he was living with his wife and unmarried daughter at Hawkchurch. The daughter, Adelaide, died later that year. He died on 2 July 1852 at Hawkchurch rectory. His widow moved to London to live with her son Edward and his family in Kensington, where she died in 1869. In addition to the work listed here he wrote an array of sermons; those on theological topics will find few modern readers but off-topic he displayed a wide range of interests. A sermon on the death of Princess Charlotte Augusta (1817) is more interesting than most on that seemingly obligatory topic; A Sermon . . . in Behalf of the Refuge for the Destitute (1812) is similarly worthy. Considerations on the Abuse of Animals (1828) and An Address to the New Zealand Emigrants (1840) are fresher and possibly worth another look by specialists on those topics. (ancestry.co.uk 19 Dec. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 19 Dec. 2022; CCEd 19 Dec. 2022; Gloucester Journal 4 May 1812; MH 10 Oct. 1851, 8 July 1852, 17 Dec. 1869) AA