Christopher Wordsworth (divine)
{{short description|English divine and scholar}}
{{for|his son, Bishop Christopher Wordsworth (1807–1885)|Christopher Wordsworth}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2012}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Christopher Wordsworth
| image = Christopher Wordsworth by GF Robson.jpg
| image_size =
| office = Master of Trinity College
| term_start = 1820
| term_end = 1841
| predecessor = William Lort Mansel
| successor = William Whewell
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1774|6|9|df=y}}
| birth_place = Cockermouth, Cumberland, England
| death_date = {{death date and age|1846|2|2|1774|6|9|df=y}}
| death_place = Buxted, East Sussex, England
| death_cause =
| resting_place =
| nationality = British
| other_names =
| known_for =
| education =
| employer =
| occupation = Divine and scholar
| spouse = {{marriage|Priscilla Lloyd|1804|1815|reason=died}}
| partner =
| children = John Wordsworth
Charles Wordsworth
Christopher Wordsworth
| parents =
| relatives = William Wordsworth (brother)
Dorothy Wordsworth (sister)
| signature =
| website =
| footnotes =
}}
Christopher Wordsworth (9 June 1774 – 2 February 1846) was an English divine and scholar.
Life
Born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, he was the youngest brother of the poet William Wordsworth,{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow in 1798.{{acad|id=WRDT791C|name=Wordsworth, Christopher}}
Twelve years later he received the degree of DD. He took holy orders, and obtained successive preferments through the patronage of Charles Manners-Sutton, Bishop of Norwich, afterwards (1805) Archbishop of Canterbury, to whose son Charles (afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons, and Viscount Canterbury) he had been tutor. He had in 1802 attracted attention by his defence of Granville Sharp's then novel canon "on the uses of the definitive article" in New Testament textual criticism.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
In 1810 he published an Ecclesiastical Biography in 6 volumes. On the death of Bishop Mansel, in 1820, he was elected Master of Trinity, and retained that position till 1841, when he resigned. He is regarded as the father of the modern "classical tripos," since he had, as vice-chancellor, originated in 1821 a proposal for a public examination in classics and divinity, which, though then rejected, bore fruit in 1822. Otherwise his mastership was undistinguished, and he was not a popular head with the college.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} He died on 2 February 1846, at Buxted, East Sussex.GRO Register of Deaths: MAR 1846 VII 313 UCKFIELD – Christopher Wordsworth
In his Who wrote Eikon Basilike? (1824), and in other writings, he advocated the claims of Charles I to its authorship; and in 1836 he published, in 4 volumes, a work of Christian Institutes, selected from English divines. In 1804 he married Priscilla Lloyd (d. 1815), a sister of both Anna Braithwaite and Charles Lamb's friend Charles Lloyd; they had three sons: John, Charles, and Christopher.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
Notes
{{reflist}}
References
- {{EB1911|wstitle = Wordsworth, Christopher (scholar)|display=Wordsworth, Christopher|volume=28|page=825 }}
- {{DNB|wstitle=Wordsworth, Christopher (1774-1846)}}
External links
- [https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/fellows/master/ The Master of Trinity] at Trinity College, Cambridge
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{{succession box |
before=William Lort Mansel |
title=Master of Trinity College, Cambridge |
years=1820–1841 |
after=William Whewell
}}
{{s-end}}
{{William Wordsworth|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control}}
{{EB1911 article with no significant updates}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wordsworth, Christopher}}
Category:People from Cockermouth
Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Category:Masters of Trinity College, Cambridge
Category:19th-century English Anglican priests
Category:Vice-chancellors of the University of Cambridge