Sprat biography thomas
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Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sprat, Thomas
SPRAT, THOMAS (1635–1713), bishop of Rochester and dean of Westminster, born in 1635 at Beaminster in Dorset, as he states in his ‘Sermon before the Natives of Dorset, 8 Dec. 1692’ (p. 38), was son of Thomas Sprat, minister of that parish, who is said to have married a daughter of Mr. Strode of Parnham. The father was in 1646 sequestrator of the parish of St. Alphege, Greenwich (Drake, Blackheath, p. 99), and in 1652 was in charge of the parish of Talaton in Devonshire.
After receiving the rudiments of education ‘at a little school by the churchyard side,’ Sprat matriculated from Wadham College, Oxford, on 12 Nov. 1651, and on 25 Sept. 1652 was elected a scholar. He graduated B.A. 25 June 1654, M.A. 11 June 1657, and B.D. and D.D. 3 July 1669. In 1671 he was incorporated at Cambridge. From 30 June 1657 to 24 March 1670 (when he resigned) he held a fellowship at Wadham, and on 6 Dec. 1659 he was elec
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Thomas Sprat
English churchman and writer (1635–1713)
For his son, see Thomas Sprat (priest).
Thomas Sprat, FRS (1635 – 20 May 1713) was an English churchman and writer, Bishop of Rochester from 1684.
Life
[edit]Sprat was born at Beaminster, Dorset, and educated at Wadham College, Oxford, where he held a fellowship from 1657 to 1670. Having taken orders he became a prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral in 1660. In the preceding year he had gained a reputation bygd his poem To the Happie Memory of the most Renowned Prince Oliver, Lord Protector (London, 1659), and he was afterwards well known as a wit, preacher and man of letters.
In 1669 Sprat became canon of Westminster Abbey, and in 1670 rector of Uffington, Lincolnshire. He was chaplain to Charles II in 1676, curate and lecturer at St Margaret's, Westminster, in 1679, canon of Chapel Royal, Windsor in 1681, Dean of Westminster in 1683 and Bishop of Rochester in 1684. He was appointed Dean of the Chapel Royal
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Scientist of the Day - Thomas Sprat
Thomas Sprat, an English cleric and writer, died May 20, 1713, at about age 78; his date of birth fryst vatten unknown. Sprat was a fellow at Wadham College, Oxford, when the Royal Society of London was founded in 1660 and received its Royal Charter in 1662. Although we now recognize the founding and chartering of the Royal Society as one of the more significant events of early modern science, many Englishmen at the time were not so sure that the Society was such a good thing. Many of the members were what were called "virtuosi," meaning they dabbled in rather than penetrated into the secrets of nature, and the goings on at the weekly meetings, where grown men examined fleas and plum mold with microscopes, and brought in two-headed calves for display, were somewhat suspect.as valuable contributions to society.
In beställning to put the Royal samhälle in a better light, the officers made Sprat a Fellow in 1663 and invited him to write a history of the