A model edition of the early correspondence of one of George III's favourite bishops. ARCHIVES Richard Hurd is best known to ecclesiastical historians as one of George III's favourite bishops who was offered, and declined, the archbishopric of Canterbury. These letters, therefore, illuminate the early career of one of the most prominent clerics of the late eighteenth century. The letters begin in 1739, just after Hurd had graduated B.A. at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. They chart his gradual climb up the ladder of ecclesiastical preferment, through his time as Fellow at Emmanuel and end with him settled in the comfortable country rectory of Thurcaston in Leicestershire. Hurd had a wide circle of correspondents. He became a close friend of William Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, perhaps the most prominent controverialist of the period. He was also a member of a literary circle which included the poets Thomas Gray and William Mason. Indeed, Hurd himself is well-known to students of English literatureas the author of Letters on Chivalry and Romanceand as a significant figure among the so-called `pre-romantics'. Hurd's letters reveal the full range of his interests, from theology and university politics, through literature, to painting and sculpture. This edition, therefore, not only tells us about Hurd's early life and career, but also provides a valuable insight into the social life of the Anglican clergy in the eighteenth century.

"It has long been an article of faith that the census of 1841 was the first British census to list the names of individuals. In nearly 90 pages of text, accompanied by unique notes and references to original documents, Mr. Chapman explodes this myth by describing hundreds of pre-1841 name lists (censuses, poll lists, national surveys, tax lists, parish enumerations, etc.), explaining most of them, as far as possible, in their historical framework. As logic would dictate, the work follows a chronological pattern, and for this new fifth edition the author has appended, in Appendix I, a county-by-county breakdown of the various censuses containing individuals' names with the dates of those censuses; and for completeness, in Appendix II, he has added a list of decennial censuses containing names of individuals from 1801 to 1831. This new fifth edition, completely rewritten, incorporates over 200 additional listings for Ireland, making it a unique chronological account of censuses and enumerations in the British Isles from 1086 to 1841"--Publisher's description.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1859.