Sprat biography thomas

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

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 by 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 in 1685 and was Clerk of the Closet from 1685 to 1687.

Sprat was a member of James II's ecclesiastical commission, and in 1688 he read the Declaration of Indulgence to empty benches in Westminster Abbey. The suggestion was that he was playing at being Vicar of Bray. Although he opposed the motion of 1689 declaring the throne vacant, he assisted at the coronation of William and Mary. As Dean of Westminster he directed Christopher Wren's restoration of the abbey.

In 1692 a bizarre attempt was made to implicate Sprat in a plot to restore the deposed king James II. This became known as the "flowerpot plot" because it involved a conspirator—a man named Robert Young—forging Sprat's signature on a document, smuggling it into the Bishop's manor and hiding the paper under a flowerpot. The authorities were contacted about the document, which led to the Bishop's arrest for high treason and the searching of his house—the forged document was eventually found where Young

​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 elected catechist. The college, which was presided over by Dr. John Wilkins, was then the meeting-place of Seth Ward [q. v.], Christopher Wren [q. v.], Dr. Ralph Bathurst [q. v.], and others who were interested in scientific study, and Sprat was drawn by their influence into the same pursuits. From these gatherings sprang the Royal Society.

Sprat was one of the contributors of satirical commendatory verses to the ‘Naps upon Parnassus,’ 1658, of Samuel Austin, the younger [q. v.] A poem by him ‘upon the death of his late highnesse, Oliver, lord-protector,’ was published, with others by Dryden and Waller, in 1659, and was dedicated to Dr. Wilkins. It was reprinted in 1682 and 1709, and was included in the first part of Dryden's ‘Miscellany.’ Its laudation of Cromwell frequently exposed Sprat to censure in after years. From a second poem, ‘The Plague of Athens,’ composed ‘after incomparable Dr. Cowley's Pindarick way,’ he was known as ‘Pindaric’ Sprat. It appeared in 1659, was reprinted in

John Evelyn's Diary. 10 Jul 1669. After this ribaldry, the Proctors made their speeches. Then began the music art, vocal and instrumental, above in the balustrade corridor opposite to the Vice-Chancellor's seat. Then Dr. Wallis, the mathematical Professor, made his oration, and created one Doctor of music according to the usual ceremonies of gown (which was of white damask), cap, ring, kiss, etc. Next followed the disputations of the Inceptor-Doctors in Medicine, the speech of their Professor, Dr. Hyde, and so in course their respective creations. Then disputed the Inceptors of Law, the speech of their Professor, and creation. Lastly, Inceptors of Theology: Dr. Compton (age 37) (brother of the Earl of Northampton) being junior, began with great modesty and applause; so the rest. After which, Dr. Tillotson (age 38), Dr. Sprat (age 34), etc., and then Dr. Allestree's (age 47) speech, the King's (age 39) Professor, and their respective creations. Last of all, the Vice-Chancellor, shutting up the whole in a panegyrical oration, celebrating their benefactor and the rest, apposite to the occasion.

Thomas Sprat, an English cleric and writer, died May 20, 1713, at about age 78; his date of birth is 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 order to put the Royal Society in a better light, the officers made Sprat a Fellow in 1663 and invited him to write a history of the Royal Society, even though an organization only a few years old would not seem to merit historical analysis. Sprat had his account pretty much ready by 1664, but the return of the plague and the Great Fire in 1665-66 put a damper on things (as we can now appreciate), and so Sprat’s The History of the Royal-Society of London did not finally appear in print until 1667; we link here to the title page. In his book, Sprat defended the experimental method and took aim at "enthusiasts" who use flowery rhetoric instead of plain speech in describing nature.

Unless you are a historian of science, you probably have never heard of Sprat, but you might be familiar with the frontispiece of his book (first image).  It shows William, Viscount Brouncker, the President of the Royal Society, at the left, and a bust of Charles II, the recently restored King who had granted the Society its Royal Charter, perched on a column in the center. At the top, spread across the landscape, is a panoply