Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Balguy, Thomas
BALGUY, THOMAS (1716–1785), divine, son of John Balguy [q. v.], was born at Cox-Close 27 Sept. 1716, educated at the Ripon Free School, and admitted to St. John's College, Cambridge, about 1732 ; was B.A. 1737, M.A. 1741, S.T.P. 1758. He was elected to a Platt fellowship at St. John's in March 1741, which he held till 1748. In 1744 he became assistant tutor to his friend Dr. Powell, tutor, afterwards master of St. John's College, and gave lectures on moral philosophy and the evidences 'for sixteen years.' In 1743 he was deputy public orator, and in 1758 tutor to the Duke of Northumberland. He states in his father's Life' that he owed all his preferments to 'the favour and friendship of Bishop Hoadley,' who had given his father a prebend of Salisbury. His father, as prebendary, presented him (1748) to the rectory of North Stoke, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, which he vacated in 1771 on becoming vicar of Alton in Hampshire. Through Hoadley's influence he obtained a prebend of Winchester in 1758, and became archdeacon of Salisbury in 1759, and afterwards archdeacon of Winchester. Thomas was, however, less of a latitudiuarian than his father, and opposed the agitation for a relaxation of the articles. In 1769 he published a sermon upon the consecration of Bishop Shipley (Nichols, Anecdotes, ix. 534), which was answered by Priestley in 'Observations upon Church Authority.' In 1772 he published an archidiaconal charge, in which he defended subscription to articles of religion; and in 1775 a sermon at the consecration of Bishops Hurd and Moore, which was answered in remarks 'by one of the prebendary clergy.' In 1775 he edited the sermons of his friend Dr. Powell, with a 'life' of the author; and in 1782 'Divine Benevolence asserted,' part of an unfinished treatise on natural religion. In 1785 he republished his father's essay on Redemption, and a collection of sermons and charges. Balguy was one of the admiring disciples of Warburton, and his name frequently appears in Warburton's correspondence with Hurd. On Warburton's death in 1781 he declined the appointment to the vacant bishopric of Gloucester on the ground of failing health and approaching blindness, and died 19 Jan. 1795 at his prebendal house at Winchester. A monument to him is in the south aisle of the cathedral. His discourses, edited by Rev. James Drake (a relation to whom his manuscripts were bequeathed), were republished at Cambridge in 1820.
[Chambers's Dictionary; Warburton's Letters to Hurd; Nichols's Anecdotes, iii. 220, viii. 167 and elsewhere; Nichols's Illustrations, iii. 516; Preface to Discourses by Drake.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.14
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 61 | i | 19 | Balguy, Thomas: for 1785 read 1795 |
| 20 f.e. | after shire insert He was a prebendary in Lincoln cathedral from 1748 till his death. | ||
| 18 f.e. | for Salisbury read Winchester | ||
| 17 f.e. | omit the line |