Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Bingham, Joseph

c.1668 - 17 August 1723

He is being included in the CHH project not because, as far as we know, he made any contribution to the history of the county, but because he was and is an internationally recognized scholar whose work on ecclesiastical history, The Antiquities of the Christian Church, 1706-1722, is probably still unsurpassed. Its importance is emphasized by the fact that it was translated into Latin and German, and is widely quoted and freely available online. For 20 years, whilst rector of Headbourne Worthy, near Winchester, he made use of the books that had been bequeathed in 1684 by Bishop George Morley to the cathedral library that bears his name. In his will they were described ‘all my Bookes which I shall dye possessed of…’. The library also has some 200 volumes that had been threatened during the Civil War and held by Winchester College, before their return in 1669.  A catalogue of 1682 lists almost 1800 titles, with at least 760 on theology, and 24 volumes of pamphlets.

As well making the books available to the cathedral clergy, Morley in his will expressed the wish that they also be available to ‘Country Parsons Vicars and Curates of my Dyocese as have not a sufficient stock of Bookes of their own, nor of money to buy them’. In fact, Bingham was almost certainly the person who ever made most use of them. In his Antiquities he acknowledged the bequest of Morley, whose rather austere portrait by the studio of Sir Peter Lely is still there and must have looked down on him during his labours. Analysis of lending records indicate that the most volumes borrowed by any canon numbered 67 and only six clergymen seem to have made use of Morley’s offer. Even so, as Bingham’s great-grandson noted in his later edition of Antiquities, published in 1855, his ancestor still had ‘want of many necessary books, which he had no opportunity to see, and no ability to purchase’.

Bingham was the son of non-conformist cutler and went from Wakefield Grammar School to University College, Oxford, where he became a fellow. Amongst his pupils was a fellow native of Wakefield, John Potter, a future archbishop of Canterbury. In 1695 Bingham was obliged to resign his fellowship after preaching a sermon on the Trinity that was judged heretical.  He was rescued from his plight by the celebrated physician and Oxford grandee, Dr John Radcliffe, who also grew up in Wakefield, and had recently purchased the advowson of Headbourne Worthy from the earls of Salisbury.  Bingham settled in a village conveniently close to Winchester Cathedral, married and had a family of 10 children. Although the parish’s late Saxon church and medieval parsonage house were in a parlous state, he seems to have administered it well: a late 17th century glebe terrier in his immaculate hand survives (HRO, 21M65/E15/58). Always short of money, and rarely successful with patronage, he was in 1712 collated to the rectorship of Havant.  In 1720 he lost much of his money in the South Sea Bubble, obliging his widow to sell his copyrights. He died two days after the short-lived Bishop of Winchester, Charles Trimnell, a man credited with ‘a kind heart and a cultivated mind’, who had apparently promised him a prebend.

Sources

• Andrew Thompson, Bishop Morley and his library, Record Extra, 2022

• Stuart Handley, Bingham, Joseph, ODNB, 2004, 2013.


• Peter Finn, Headbourne Worthy: A History, Kings Worthy Local History Group, 2020.

Portrait

Headbourne Worthy church, 1846, by G.E. Prosser

Contribution to county’s history

None, as far as is known.

Relevant published works

• Richard Bingham, ed. [curate, Trinity Church, Gosport], Origines Ecclesiasticae or The Antiquities of the Christian Church and Other Works of the Rev. Joseph Bingham, London, 8 volumes [originally in 10 volumes], 1855;  

Critical Comments

His scholarship is awe-inspiring; he happened to be the right person at the right time to make best use of Morley’s bequest.

Other Comments

He is surely a goliath in the history of scholarship associated with Winchester Cathedral and its clergy.

Contributor

Barry Shurlock, 5 February 2024

Key Words

George Morley, Christian church, Wakefield, Headbourne Worthy, Havant, Charles Trimnell, John Radcliffee

Any queries or further suggestions for this part of the list should be addressed to celebrating@hantsfieldclub.org.uk.

Back to Historians A-B from Altham H S to Butterfield R P