Secker, THOMAS

Secker, THOMAS, Archbishop of Canterbury (1758-68), was born at Sibthorpe, Nottinghamshire, in 1693, the son of a Dissenter of independent means, who wished him to enter the ministry of his own communion. In 1716, however, the son turned to medicine, which he studied at London and Paris, ultimately taking his doctorate in physic at Leyden in 1721. Meanwhile, urged by his old schoolfellow, Joseph Butler, he had decided to take Anglican orders; in 1722 he graduated B.A. at Oxford, and in that and the following year he was ordained deacon and priest. His preferments were Houghton-le-Spring (1724), Ryton and a prebend at Durham (1727), chaplain to the king (1732), St James's, London (1733), Bishop of Bristol (1735), of Oxford (1737), Dean of St Paul's, for which he resigned the living of St James's (1750), and the primacy (1758). He was a wise, kindly, hard-working bishop, and a notable preacher in his day. He died 3d August 1768. See the Review of his Life, by Beilby Porteous (5th ed. 1797; originally prefixed to a posthumous edition of his sermons, &c. 1770).