The city of Cambridge: Distinguished residents

A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 3, the City and University of Cambridge. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1959.

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'The city of Cambridge: Distinguished residents', in A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 3, the City and University of Cambridge, (London, 1959) pp. 148-149. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/cambs/vol3/pp148-149 [accessed 20 April 2024]

DISTINGUISHED NATIVES AND RESIDENTS

Naturally a very large number of eminent persons have been connected with Cambridge, and most of them are mentioned in the articles in this volume. It is permissible, however, to pick out here a few, most of them born in the Borough, who are not so mentioned. Among ecclesiastics born or baptized in Cambridge are Godfrey Goldsborough (d. 1604), Bishop of Gloucester; Robert Townson or Toulson (d. 1621), Bishop of Salisbury; Jeremy Taylor (d. 1667), Bishop of Down and Connor; G. H. Law (d. 1845), Bishop successively of Chester and of Bath and Wells; and Thomas Musgrave (d. 1860), successively Bishop of Hereford and Archbishop of York. Writers born in the Borough include Edward Grim (fl. 1170–7), the biographer of Becket; Thomas Hatcher (d. 1583), antiquary; James Drake (d. 1707), political writer; Richard Franck (d. 1708), author of Northern Memoirs; Damaris, Lady Masham (d. 1708), theological writer and friend of John Locke; William Whitehead (d. 1785), poet laureate; James Gifford (d. 1813), unitarian; T.S. Whalley (d. 1828), poet; Mary Pilkington (d. 1839), novelist; George Brimley (d. 1857), essayist; John Purchas (d. 1872), divine; and Mary Ann Kelty (d. 1873), who wrote on religious subjects. Edward Norgate (d. 1650), illuminer and herald-painter, Alexander Bannerman (fl. 1766), engraver, and P. S. Lamborn (d. 1774), engraver and miniaturist, were all born in Cambridge; the portrait-painters James Sharples (d. 1811) and John Downman (d. 1824) worked in Cambridge. Other distinguished natives of the town were Edmond Beales, political agitator (d. 1881), J. A. Paris, physician (d. 1856), F. C. Hengler, circus proprietor (d. 1887), and George Fordham, jockey (d. 1887). Israel Lyons the elder, Hebraist, settled in Cambridge and died there in 1770; his son, Israel Lyons the younger, mathematician and botanist (d. 1775), was born in the Borough. (fn. 13)

Footnotes

  • 13. Biographies of all these persons are to be found in D.N.B.