Edward Nares

Edward Nares (1762-1841) was an English academic and theologian, and general writer.

Life

He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He was Fellow of Merton College, Oxford and became in 1813 Regius Professor of Modern History. He was curate of St-Peter-in-the-East, Oxford, and then rector of Biddenden from 1798 ["Like all Wealden villages, Biddenden was practically cut off every winter and sometimes throughout the year when any prolonged rain would turn the roads into a morass of mud. As recently as 1807 the Rev Edward Nares recorded that even with four horses harnessed to his carriage he could travel no more than three miles from his rectory." [http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:eHtBfgw4YKsJ:www.historic-kent.co.uk/vill_b.htm+%22Edward+Nares%22+geological&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=6] ] , of New Church, Romney from 1827. ["Concise Dictionary of National Biography"]

He was Bampton Lecturer in 1805. ["…Edward Nares could call on de Luc to support his nearly literal approach in his 1805 Bampton Lectures. However thirty years later Nares had joined the "Anti-geologists"." [http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:BoKzyE50yisJ:scibel.gospelcom.net/content/scibelarticles.php%3Fid%3D52+Nares+theological&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=19] ] Orthodox on the Biblical account, he was speculative on the issue of the plurality of worlds. [ See [http://www.romancatholic.org/slaxthesis.html] . He wrote an 1803 pamphlet on the topic. He is mentioned in Michael J. Crowe (1986), "The extraterrestrial life debate 1750-1900. The idea of a plurality of worlds from Kant to Lowell".]

He wrote for the "Anti-Jacobin". [http://www.library.armstrong.edu/subguideearlyperiodicals-EBP.htm]

Family

His father was Sir George Nares. He married Lady Charlotte Spencer, daughter of George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough (an elopement).

Works

*"Sermons Composed for Country Congregations" (1803)
*"View of the Evidences of Christianity at the End of the Pretended Age of Reason" (1805 Bampton Lectures)
*"Thinks I to Myself" (1811)
*"I Says, Says I; A Novel By Thinks-I-To-Myself" (1812)
*"Heraldic Anomalies ; or, rank confusion in our orders of precedence. With disquisitions, moral, philosophical, and historical, on all the existing orders of society. By it matters not Who" (1823)
*"Elements of General History Ancient and Modern" (1825)
*"Memoirs of the Life and Administration of the Right Honourable William Cecil, Lord Burghley" (1828) three volumes [Reviewed (unkindly) by Thomas Macaulay [http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/hst/european/CriticalandHistoricalEssaysVolume1/chap8.html] ]
*"Man, as known to us theologically and geologically" (1834)
*"The History of the Reformation of the Church of England" by Gilbert Burnet, 1849 revision

References

*George Cecil White (1903) "A Versatile Professor: Reminiscences of the Rev. Edward Nares"

Notes

External links

* [http://www.nares.net/edward_nares_1762.htm Biography on Nares Genealogy Page]
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=HS0lAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=thinks-I-to-myself Text of "Thinks-I-to-Myself" on GoogleBooks]