Francis Blackburne (archdeacon)

Francis Blackburne (9 June 1705 – 7 August 1787) was an English Anglican churchman, archdeacon of Cleveland and an activist against the requirement of subscription to the Thirty Nine Articles.

He was born at Richmond, Yorkshire, on 9 June 1705. He was educated at Kendal, Hawkshead, and Sedbergh School, and was admitted in May 1722 at Catherine Hall, Cambridge. Blackburne was a follower of John Locke's politics and theology, and was refused a fellowship. He was ordained deacon 17 March 1728, and became ‘conduct’ of his college.

He left his college and lived with an uncle in Yorkshire till 1739, when he was ordained priest to take the rectory of Richmond in Yorkshire, which had been promised to him on the first vacancy. He resided there till his death. He was collated to the archdeaconry of Cleveland in July 1750, and in August 1750 to the prebend of Bilton, by Archbishop Matthew Hutton; but his principles prevented any further preferment, and he made up his mind never again to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles. In 1772 a meeting was held at the Feathers Tavern, and a petition signed by 200 persons for giving effect to Blackburne's proposal in the Confessional. It was rejected by 217 to 71 after a speech in condemnation by Edmund Burke, published in his Works.

Theophilus Lindsey, who married a stepdaughter of Blackburne's, and John Disney, who married his eldest daughter, joined in this agitation, and both of them afterwards left the church of England to become unitarians. Blackburne was supposed to sympathise with their views. He was said to have declined an offer to succeed the nonconformist Samuel Chandler at the Old Jewry at a salary of £400.

In 1787 he performed his thirty-eighth visitation in Cleveland, and died, 7 August 1787, a few weeks later.

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