Christopher Wordsworth

Author

1774 – 1846

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Who was Christopher Wordsworth?

Christopher Wordsworth, was an English divine and scholar.

Born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, he was the youngest brother of the poet William Wordsworth, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow in 1798.

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 Archbishop of Canterbury, to whose son Charles 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.

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. He died on 2 February 1846, at Buxted, Sussex.

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Born
Jun 9, 1774
Cockermouth
Siblings
Children
Religion
  • Anglicanism
Education
  • Trinity College, Cambridge
Died
Feb 2, 1846
Buxted

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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