Bishop Lowth
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The Right Reverend and Right Honourable Robert Lowth FRS |
|
|---|---|
| Bishop of London | |
 |
|
| Church | Church of England |
| Diocese | Diocese of London |
| Elected | 1777 |
| Predecessor | Richard Terrick |
| Successor | Beilby Porteus |
| Other posts |
Bishop of Oxford 1766–1777 Bishop of St David's 1766 Archdeacon of Winchester 1750–1766 Oxford Professor of Poetry 1741–1752 |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | 1735 |
| Consecration | 1766 |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
27 November 1710 Hampshire, Great Britain |
| Died | 3 November 1787 (aged 76) |
| Buried | All Saints Church, Fulham |
| Nationality | British |
| Denomination | Anglican |
| Parents | William Lowth |
| Profession | Academic (poetry & english grammar) |
| Alma mater | New College, Oxford |
Robert Lowth FRS (/laʊð/; 27 November 1710 – 3 November 1787) was a Bishop of the Church of England, Oxford Professor of Poetry and the author of one of the most influential textbooks of English grammar.
Lowth was born in Hampshire, Great Britain, the son of Dr William Lowth, a clergyman and Biblical commentator. He was educated at Winchester College and became a scholar of New College, Oxford in 1729. Lowth obtained his BA in 1733 and his Master of Arts degree in 1737. In 1735, while still at Oxford, Lowth took orders in the Anglican Church and was appointed vicar of Ovington, Hampshire, a position he retained until 1741, when he was appointed Oxford Professor of Poetry.
Bishop Lowth made a translation of the Bible. The Seventh-day Adventist theologian E J Waggoner said in 1899 that Lowth's translation of Isaiah was "without doubt, as a whole, the best English translation of the prophecy of Isaiah".
In 1750 he was appointed Archdeacon of Winchester. In 1752 he resigned the professorship at Oxford and married Mary Jackson. Shortly afterwards, in 1753, Lowth was appointed rector of East Woodhay. In 1754 he was awarded a Doctorate in Divinity by Oxford University, for his treatise on Hebrew poetry entitled Praelectiones Academicae de Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum (On the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews). This derives from a series of lectures and was originally published in Latin. An English translation was published by George Gregory in 1787 as "Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews". This and subsequent editions include the life of Bishop Lowth as a preface. There was a further edition issued in 1815. This was republished in North America in 1829 with some additional notes. However, apart from those notes, the 1829 edition is less useful to a modern reader. This is because the editor of that edition chose to revert to citing many of the scriptural passages that Lowth uses as examples, and some of the annotations by Michaelis (Johann David Michaelis) and others, in Latin.
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