Archdeacon of East Riding. He was a noted author, translator, book collector and abolitionist. He was born at Raysthorpe, near Malton, Yorkshire. He attended Hull Grammar School and took honors at Cambridge. He was ordained in 1793 he was ordained and became rector of Hunmanby in the East Riding. In England in that time it was common for well-connected or conspicuously talented clerics to accumulate church positions, hiring curates to do the actual work. He was the son of a prosperous farmer, his success resulted from his own talent and from an early position as tutor to the brother of the Duke of Manchester, and the lifelong friendship and patronage of the ducal family. In addition to being vicar of Humanby, he was vicar of Folkton, 1795–1821; Fellow of the Royal Society, 15 November 1804; examining chaplain to Vernon Harcourt, Archbishop of York, 1814–34; Archdeacon of Cleveland, 1820–28; vicar of Thorpe Bassett, 1821–27; Prebendary of York, 1823; rector of Dodleston, Cheshire, and Prebendary of Chester, 1827–42; and Archdeacon of the East Riding, 1828–40. He was a well-known and widely read poet, essayist and translator of Greek and Latin literature. He was an advocate for the abolition of slavery, the education of women, Catholic rights, charity schools, free libraries, charity hospitals and other progressive social ideas. One of his daughters married William Wilberforce's son. His theology was orthodox. He opposed deists, dissenters, and Unitarians, and supported foreign missions, writing one book on methods for converting India to Christianity. He was the author in 1794 of The Restoration of the Jews, a poem advocating the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel, that won the Cambridge University Seaton poetry prize. The poem includes a strong anti-slavery statement.