John Colbatch

John Colbatch (1664–11 February 1748), sometimes Colbach, was an English churchman and academic, professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge. Drawn into the long legal struggle between Richard Bentley and the fellowship of Trinity College, Cambridge, he became a chief opponent and spent a short time in prison for a tactless court appearance.

He was admitted to St. Peter's, Westminster, as a scholar in 1680, and proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1683. He became fellow of his college, proceeding B.A. 1686, MA. 1690, S.T.B. 1701, S.T.P. 1706. On first taking orders he was appointed chaplain to the British factory at Lisbon, where he remained around seven years, and wrote, at the request of Gilbert Burnet, an Account of the State of Religion and Literature in Portugal for which he received promises of preferment from the bishop and from Queen Mary. He returned to England to prepare for Trinity College Gilbert Burnet the younger, the bishop's second son, and in 1701, by the good offices of Bentley, was selected by the Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, chancellor of Cambridge University, as tutor to his eldest son, the Earl of Hertford. After two years at Cambridge Colbatch was persuaded by the duke to travel on the Grand Tour two years more with his pupil, but in the end of the tour the duke suddenly quarrelled with him and dismissed him from his post, allowing him only his bare salary less expenses, and passing harsh reflections on his character. These reflections the duke was persuaded by Bentley to retract, but he did not fulfil promises of preferment.

Burnet's patronage resulted only in a prebend's stall at Salisbury worth £20 yearly, and Colbatch returned to Cambridge at the age of forty disappointed. His university, however, elected him Professor of Casuistical Divinity, and his lectures on moral philosophy brought him a reputation.

Residence at Cambridge as fellow of Trinity involved him in the feud between the master and fellows of Trinity College. Colbatch at first was a moderate, and published a pamphlet in defence of Bentley's contention that any B.D. or D.D. should, for college rooms or a college living, have priority over a master of arts. After the death of John Moore, bishop of Ely and Visitor, in 1714, he felt it impossible to remain neutral in the quarrel, and his refusal in that year of Bentley's offer of the vice-mastership of the college began his long contest with the master. He took the lead of the fellows in the efforts made to cause William Fleetwood, Moore's successor, to move against Bentley, and in 1716 came to an open rupture with the master, because he refused to accede to his claim to the vice-mastership.

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