John Cheke

Who was John Cheke?

Sir John Cheke was an English classical scholar and statesman, notable as the first Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge University.

The son of Peter Cheke, esquire, who was Bedell of Cambridge University, he was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow in 1529. While there he adopted the principles of the Reformation. His learning gained him an exhibition from the king, and in 1540, on Henry VIII's foundation of the regius professorships, he was elected to the chair of Greek. Amongst his pupils at St John's were William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, who married Cheke's sister Mary, and Roger Ascham, who in The Scholemaster gives Cheke the highest praise for scholarship and character. Together with Sir Thomas Smith, he introduced a new method of Greek pronunciation very similar to that commonly used in England in the 19th century. It was strenuously opposed in the University, where the continental method prevailed, and Bishop Gardiner, as chancellor, issued a decree against it; but Cheke ultimately triumphed.

Although a scholar of Greek, Cheke was against the over-borrowing of Greek words into English and supported English linguistic purism.