Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Winchester

Benjamin Hoadly was born at Westerham, Kent, on November 14, 1676, the second son among nine children of the Rev. Samuel Hoadly (1643-1705), a schoolmaster and writer of educational books, and his second wife Martha Pickering (1639-1703). Hoadly entered St. Catherine's College, Cambridge, in 1691. After losing seven terms to smallpox (which left him crippled), he earned a B.A. degree in 1696. Elected fellow the following year, he served as college tutor from 1699 to 1701, and took holy orders in 1700. Through his sisters (mantua makers in Covent Garden) he met their neighbor Sarah Curtis (1676-1743), a professional portrait painter from Yorkshire, whom he married on May 30, 1701. Hoadly's crippled condition obliged him to walk with crutches or a cane, and to preach while kneeling on a stool. Undeterred by this handicap, he rose steadily through successive appointments, gaining notice as a prolific and controversial writer on religious and political questions. On December 21, 1715, he was promoted to the bishopric of Bangor. His 1717 sermon arguing the supremacy of the state over the church unleashed the "Bangorian Controversy," and strengthened his reputation as a champion of civil and religious liberties. His vigorous defense of the new Hanoverian Protestant monarchy against the hereditary right of the Catholic Stuarts raised his favor with the Whig party, and he was translated to the successively important Bishoprics of Hereford (1721-23), Salisbury (1723-34), and Winchester (1734-61). In the latter capacity, he ranked second in dignity and order of precedence among all English bishops. Hoadly was widely criticized for absenteeism, greed, and nepotism, but in those respects he was only more successful than other successful churchmen of his period. His wife died on January 11, 1743, survived by the bishop and their two sons, Benjamin (1706-1757), a physician, and John (1711-1776), a clergyman, both of whom were intimate friends of William Hogarth. On July 23, 1745, the widowed bishop married Mary Newey (1708-67), daughter and coheiress of Dr. John Newey, Dean of Chichester. Hoadly was by then leading a comfortable, retired existence at Winchester House, Chelsea, focusing on the pleasures of the table and the life of the mind. He died, aged eighty-four, after an illness of two hours, at his palace in Chelsea, April 17, 1761, "retaining his senses perfectly to the last."