John Burton (scholar)

John Burton, D.D. (1696–1771) was an English clergyman and academic, a theological and classical scholar.

Burton was born at Wembworthy, Devon, where his father Samuel Burton was rector. He was educated partly at Okehampton and Blundell's School, Tiverton in his native county, and partly at Ely, where he was placed on his father's death by the Rev. Samuel Bentham, the first cousin of his mother. In 1713 he was elected as a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and took his degree of B. A. on 27 June 1717, shortly after which he became the college tutor. He proceeded M.A. 24 March 1720-1, was elected probationary fellow 6 April following, and admitted actual fellow 4 April 1723.

As college tutor he acquired a great reputation. Particulars of his teaching are set out in his friend Edward Bentham's 'De Vita et Moribus Johannis Burtoni . . . epistola ad Robertum Lowth,' 1771. In logic and metaphysics he passed from Robert Sanderson and Jean Le Clerc to John Locke; in ethics from Aristotle to Puffendorf's abridgment and Sanderson's lectures. Twice a week he lectured on Xenophon and Demosthenes, and occasionally he taught on some Latin author. It was through Burton that the study of Locke was introduced into the schools, and he printed for the use of the younger students a double series of philosophical questions, with references to the authors to be consulted under each head. A set of exercises which he gave the undergraduates of his college for employment during the long vacation was printed under the title of 'Sacræ Scripturæ locorum quorundam versio metrica,' 1736.

For the Oxford University Press he obtained a gift from John Rolle, and a legacy from Dr. Walter Hodges, the Provost of Oriel College. Through the circumstance that Burton had been tutor to a son of Dr. Henry Bland, a fellowship at Eton College was bestowed on him on 17 August 1733, and when the vicarage of Mapledurham became vacant by the death of Dr. Edward Littleton on 16 November 1733, Burton was nominated thereto by the college and inducted on 9 March 1734. Dr. Littleton had married a daughter of Barnham Goode, under-master of Eton School, and left her a widow 'with three infant daughters, without a home, without a fortune.' The new vicar allowed the family to remain for a time in their old home, and the story runs that 'some time after a neighbouring clergyman happened to call and found Mrs. Littleton shaving John Burton.' At this sight the visitor remonstrated with his clerical friend, and the result was that 'Burton proposed marriage and was accepted.' Burton devoted much of his income to improving the parsonage and the glebe lands.

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