- Thomas Pyle
The Reverend Thomas Pyle (born at
Stody ,Norfolk , 1674, diedSwaffham , Norfolk,31 December 1756 ) was aChurch of England clergyman and religious controversialist.Background and education
The son of the Reverend John Pyle (died 1709), Rector of
Stody , he was educated atGresham's School , Holt, and atGonville and Caius College, Cambridge , where he was admitted sizar on17 May 1692 , at the age of seventeen. He was elected a scholar of the College later the same year. He graduated BA in 1696 and MA in 1699.Career
Pyle was ordained deacon on
30 May 1697 and priest on25 September 1698 , by Dr Edward Moore,bishop of Norwich , whose chaplain, William Whiston, commented that Pyle was one of the two best scholars he had ever examined.He was appointed vicar of
Thorpe Market in 1698. In 1701, he was appointed minister of St Nicholas's Chapel inKing's Lynn . He was lecturer and curate of St Margaret's, King's Lynn, from 1711, and Rector ofOutwell (1709–18),Bexwell (1708–9), andWatlington (1710–26).Pyle was a strong Whig, and the accession of George I, together with the fact that
King's Lynn was represented in parliament by the prime minister,Robert Walpole , gave Pyle hope of preferment in the church. His publications on theBangorian controversy gained him the friendship ofBenjamin Hoadly . After Hoadly becamebishop of Salisbury , Pyle gained the living of Durnford, inWiltshire . Pyle preached inLondon , and his "Paraphrase of the Acts and Epistles, in the Manner of Dr Clarke" (1725) and another volume of paraphrases gained the support of dissenters and latitudinarians such asSamuel Chandler ,Samuel Clarke , andThomas Herring . But Pyle never received additional preferment, even after Herring becameArchbishop of Canterbury .Pyle made no secret of his views on the
Trinity , in which he adopted an Arian position, revelling in what he called "the glorious prerogative of private judgement, the birth-right of Protestants".In 1732, he exchanged his old livings for the vicarage of St Margaret's, King's Lynn, which he retained until 1755, when he retired to Swaffham and died on
31 December 1756 .Publications
*On the Bangorian controversy, Pyle wrote "A Vindication of the Bishop of Bangor, in Answer to the Exceptions of Mr Law" (1718) and "A Second Vindication" (1718). He also published two tracts in reply to Henry Stebbing's on the matter.
*"Paraphrase of the Acts and Epistles, in the Manner of Dr Clarke" (1725)
*Three collections of his religious discourses were published by Philip Pyle in 1773, 1777, and 1783.Family
Pyle married Mary Rolfe (1681/2–1748) of
King's Lynn , in 1701, and they had three sons, all clergymen. Edmund (1702–1776) was lecturer at St Nicholas's, King's Lynn, archdeacon ofYork , chaplain to Bishop Benjamin Hoadly and chaplain to the King. Thomas (1713–1807), became a canon ofSalisbury and ofWinchester . Philip (1724–1799), was Rector of North Lynn.References
*"Thomas Pyle" by E. G. Hawke, revised by Andrew Robinson, in "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography"
*Venn's "Alumni Cantab."
*"The History of Lynn" by W. Richards, (2 volumes 1813), 1012–23
*"The History and Antiquities of King's Lynn" by B. Mackerell (1738), 89
*"English Church Life from the Restoration to the Tractarian Movement" by J. W. Legg (1914)
*"Memoirs of a Royal Chaplain, 1729–1736" by Edmund Pyle, ed. A. Hartshorne (1905)
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