Bishop, scholar, poet. Short biography and "Pointers for Prayer".

Thomas Percy 1729-1811

Thomas Percy was bishop of Down and Dromore 1782-1812. Born in England to a wealthy merchant family, by the age of 17 he had compiled a library of 285 books. He attended Newport School from where he won an exhibition to Christ Church, Oxford in 1746. In 1753 he was ordained. He was rector of a number of English parishes before becoming Dean of Carlisle and his later appointment to Dromore.

Percy carried out most of the literary work for which he is now remembered at Easton Maudit. He wrote extensively. He was a very capable linguist. His first work was a translation from a Portuguese manuscript of a Chinese story.

He was well acquainted with the major literary figures of his day, being a member of Dr. Johnson’s famous Literary Club. Percy is frequently referred to in Boswell's "Life of Johnson." He numbered Oliver Goldsmith and Edmund Burke amongst his friends. Johnson described him as “a man out of whose company I never go without having learned something”. Boswell on their Hebridean tour commented to Johnston that anecdotes flowed from Percy, “like one of the brooks here.”

Johnston wrote the foreword for Percy’s best known work “The Reliques” which is dedicated to Elizabeth, Countess of Northumberland, a patron who was to prove most valuable. The corbel shows Percy holding a copy of “The Reliques”.

Percy’s “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry” (1768), is the first of the great ballad collections, and was the one work most responsible for the ballad revival in English poetry that was a significant part of the Romantic movement. “The Reliques” set the stage not only for Robert Burns, but also for Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads. The book is based on an old manuscript collection of poetry, rescued by Percy in Humphrey Pitt's house at Shifnal, Shropshire, from the hands of the housemaid who was about to light the fire with it. The manuscript was edited in its complete form by JW Hales and FJ Furnivall in 1867-1868. This manuscript provides the core of the work but many other ballads were found and included, some by Percy's friends Johnson, William Shenstone, Thomas Warton, and some from a similar collection made by Samuel Pepys.

Percy’s literary reputation was such that he had contracts to edit the Tatler, Spectator and Guardian. As he rose in the Church, Percy distanced himself from “The Reliques” describing them as “the follies of my youth.” Moreover, disaster had struck in 1780 when Northumberland House caught fire and gutted Percy's apartments, consuming many books and most of his collection of black-letter poems; he also lost his portrait by Joshua Reynolds (1773-4). Still, he wrote the entry on the poet John Cleveland for Biographia Britannica (1784) – Cleveland was the brother of Percy's great-grandfather – and in 1786 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

In 1757, Percy met Anne Gutteridge and they married in 1759, a partnership which was to last 45 years. They had five daughters and one son though sadly three daughters died before reaching maturity and their son died whilst an undergraduate at Cambridge.

When he became famous, he was made domestic chaplain to the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland. Through the Duke’s influence he became Dean of Carlisle in 1778 and Bishop of Dromore in County Down in 1782.

The Percys lived in the Episcopal Palace at Dromore. His wife died before him in 1806; the bishop, blind but otherwise in sound health, lived another five years. Both were buried in the transept which Percy had added to Dromore Cathedral.

To the very end of his ministry Percy was interested in education and he was one of the founders of Belfast “Inst’. Part of his extensive library was purchased by Queen’s University Library.

POINTERS FOR PRAYER

+ Thank God for literature and the friendships it can form.

+ Thank God for those who entertain and inspire others through their writing.

+ Pray for schools, universities and libraries.