Author: Thirlwall, Connop
Biography:
THIRLWALL, Connop (1797-1875: ODNB)
Connop Newell Thirlwall was born at Stepney, Tower Hamlets, London, 11 Feb. 1797, to Susannah Connop (1755-1827), a daughter of Richard Connop and his wife, Ann Newell, and her second husband, the Rev. Thomas Thirlwall (1750-1827), curate of Stepney. He had three brothers and three stepbrothers. Connop’s first publication, Primitiae, contains poems and essays he composed at age eight through thirteen. At Charterhouse, he was the friend of future historian George Grote and the theologian Julius Hare. Admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1814 (BA 1818, MA 1821), in 1815 he was a Bell and Craven scholar; he received the chancellor’s medal in 1818); and upon his graduation, was elected fellow of his college. In 1827-28 he was junior dean, in 1830-32 junior bursar, and in 1832-34 assistant tutor at Trinity. Because he supported the admission of dissenters to the university, he was forced to resign his assistant tutorship. He was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in 1820 and was called to the Bar in 1825, but in 1827 gave up the law for a career in the Church. Ordained priest in 1828, he was vicar of Over, Cambridge (1829-30); rector of Kirby-Hundlesdale, York (1835-39); and bishop of St David’s (1840-74). The QR gave his 1828 translation of Niebuhr’s History of Rome (1828) a hostile review. Besides sermons, he published an eight-volume History of Greece and translations of Schleiermacher. He is called a Tory historian, yet he was liberal theologically. He supported the admission of Jews to Parliament and, alone among the bishops, voted for the disestablishment of the Irish Church. Thirlwall died 27 July 1875 at 59 Pulteney Street, Bath. He is entombed with Grote in Westminster Abbey. At probate, his estate was valued under £16,000. (ODNB 23 Apr. 2023; CCEd 23 Apr. 2023) JC