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Author: Valpy, Richard

Biography:

VALPY, Richard (1754-1836: ODNB)

He was born into an old Jersey family, the eldest of the six children of Catherine (Chevalier) and Richard Valpy. At ten he was sent for five years to a college in France; when he published his first collection of poems by subscription in 1772 he was still a grammar-school student. He entered Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1773 (BA 1776, MA 1784, BD and DD 1792) and was ordained after graduating. He began his teaching career in 1777 as a master at Bury St. Edmunds School. In 1778 he married Martha Cornelius of Caundé, Guernsey, but she died in 1780 after the birth of their daughter Martha Carteretta in Nov. 1779. In 1781 Valpy was appointed headmaster of Reading School: over the next fifty years he presided over its rise and the beginning of its fall. He held his students to a high academic standard but was nevertheless a popular teacher and Head. Many of his later publications are teaching tools, including adaptations from English and classical plays. In 1782 he married a deaf woman, Mary Benwell (1760-1816; sister of William Benwell, q.v.); they had ten children. He was appointed to the living of Stradishall, Suffolk, in 1787 and retired there in 1830, his youngest son following him as headmaster at Reading. He died at the home of another son, the eldest, in Kensington, London, and is buried at Kensal Green. (ODNB 4 Dec. 2020; DNB; findmypast.com 4 Dec. 2020; ancestry.com 4 Dec. 2020; Oxford University and City Herald 2 Apr. 1836)

 

Other Names:

  • R. V.
  • R. Valpy
 

Books written (11):

Reading/ London: [no publisher: printed by Smart and Cowslade/ sold by Elmsley and others]Elmsley, 1794
2nd edn. Reading/ London: [no publisher: printed by Smart and Cowslade/ sold by Elmsly and others]], 1795
3rd edn. Reading/ London: Smart and Cowslade/ Bremner, Law, Pridden, Richardsons, Robinsons, and Williams, 1801
7th edn. London: Longman and Co., Lackington and Co., Richardson, Law, Rivington, Lunn, and Dulau, 1812
10th edn. London: Longman and Co., Lackington and Co., and G. and W. B. Whittaker, 1822
New edn. London: Longman and Co., G. B. Whittaker, Rivingtons, Harding and Co., 1825
London: Longman and Co., Baldwin and Co., G. B. Whittaker, Rivingtons, Simpkin and Marshall, 1827