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Thomas Birch

Thomas Birch (23 November 1705 – 9 January 1766) was an English historian.

For other people named Thomas Birch, see Thomas Birch (disambiguation).

Thomas Birch

(1705-11-23)23 November 1705

9 January 1766(1766-01-09) (aged 60)

British

Historian and Keeper of books at British Museum.

Fellow of the Royal Society

Life[edit]

He was the son of Joseph Birch, a coffee-mill maker, and was born at Clerkenwell.[1]


He preferred study to business but, as his parents were Quakers, he did not go to the university. Notwithstanding this circumstance, he was ordained deacon in the Church of England in 1730 and priest in 1731. As a strong supporter of the Whigs, he gained the favour of Philip Yorke, afterwards Lord Chancellor and first Earl of Hardwicke, and his subsequent preferments were largely due to this friendship. He held successively a number of benefices in different counties, and finally in London.[1]


He was noted as a keen fisherman during the course of his lifetime, and devised an unusual method of disguising his intentions. Dressed as a tree, he stood by the side of a stream in an outfit designed to make his arms seem like branches and the rod and line a spray of blossom. Any movement, he argued, would be taken by a fish to be the consequences of a mild breeze.


In 1735 he became a member of the Society of Antiquaries, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, of which he was secretary from 1752 to 1765. In 1728 he had married Hannah Cox, who died in the following year. Birch was killed on 9 January 1766 by a fall from his horse, and was buried in the church of St Margaret Pattens, London, of which he was then rector.[1] He died, according to his will, "in a full confidence in the Mercy and Goodness of almighty God and with a firm persuasion of a blessed Immortality discoverable by the Light of Nature and confirmed for us Christians by that of Revelation", leaving his books and manuscripts to the British Museum, and a sum of about £500 to increase the salaries of the three assistant librarians.[1]

Inquiry into the share which had in the transactions of the Earl of Glamorgan for bringing over a body of Irish rebels (published by Millar in London, 1756);[3]

King Charles I

Historical view of Negotiations between the Courts of England, France and Brussels 1592-1617 (London, 1749);

Life of Archbishop (London, 1753);

Tillotson

History of the Royal Society of London (London, 1756–1757);

Life of Henry, Prince of Wales (London, 1760), and other works.

The heads of illustrious persons of Great Britain, in 108 copper plates, engraved by and Mr. Vertue, with their lives and characters, by Thomas Birch, D.D. Secretary of the Royal Society, London, 1761

Mr. Houbraken

Birch, Thomas (1754). Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth from the Year 1581 till her Death. In which the secret intrigues of her Court, And the conduct of her favourite, Robert Earl of Essex, both at Home and Aboard are particularly illustrated. Vol. I.

Birch, Thomas (1754). . Vol. II. Retrieved 27 August 2008. at Google Books.[5]

Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth from the Year 1581 till her Death. In which the secret intrigues of her Court, And the conduct of her favourite, Robert Earl of Essex, both at Home and Aboard are particularly illustrated

Courtney, William Prideaux (1886). . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 5. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

"Birch, Thomas (1705-1766)" 

Biographia Britannica (London, 1778–1793)

A. Kippis

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the : Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Birch, Thomas". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 958.

public domain

Horace Walpole, Letters (London, 1891).

Letter to Andrew Millar, April 12, 1755, accessed through "www.millar-project.ed.ac.uk." University of Edinburgh. [1]

Hume, David