Philip Stanhope Dodd

Philip Stanhope Dodd (1775–1852), Church of England clergyman.

Dodd, son of the Rev. Richard Dodd, rector of Cowley, Middlesex, author of a translation of Formey's ‘Ecclesiastical History,’ who died in 1811, was born in 1775. He was educated at Tunbridge School, and having entered Magdalene College, Cambridge, was elected a fellow, and proceeded B.A. in 1796, and M.A. in 1799. In 1798 he published anonymously ‘Hints to Freshmen, from a Member of the University of Cambridge,’ of which the third edition was printed in 1807. In early life he was for some years curate of Camberwell, Surrey, which appointment he exchanged in 1803 for the ministry of Lambeth Chapel, retaining the afternoon lecture at Camberwell.

In 1806 he was chaplain to the lord mayor, Sir William Leighton, and published five sermons preached in that capacity. The fourth of these, on ‘The Lawfulness of Judicial Oaths and on Perjury,’ preached at St. Paul's Cathedral 31 May 1807, produced ‘A Reply to so much of a sermon by Philip Dodd as relates to the scruples of the Quakers against all swearing. By Joseph Gurney Bevan.’ He was rewarded for his civic services by the valuable rectory of St. Mary-at-Hill in the city of London in 1807, where he was one of the most popular divines of the metropolis.

In 1812 he was presented by his college to the sinecure rectory of Aldrington in Sussex, the church of which had been destroyed. Sir J. S. Sidney, bart., in 1819 gave him the rectory of Penshurst, Kent, worth 766l. per annum, which was his last church preferment. In 1837 he wrote ‘A View of the Evidence afforded by the life and ministry of St. Paul to the truth of the Christian Revelation.’ He died at Penshurst Rectory 22 March 1852, aged 77. He married Martha, daughter of Colonel Wilson of Chelsea College.

References