John Disney (rector)

John Disney (26 December 1677 - 3 February 1729/30) was an English clergyman. He was Vicar of Croft and Kirkby-on-Bain, Lincolnshire from 1719 to 1722, and Vicar of St. Mary's Church, Nottingham from 2 October 1722 to 1729/30.

He was born in Lincoln, the son of Daniel Disney of Swinderby. He began his education at Lincoln Grammar School, but his parents were dissenters and he moved school to a private college, also in Lincoln. Despite his upbringing, he was confirmed in the Church of England, sometime before 1698. In May of that year, he married Mary Woodhouse. He entered the Middle Temple in order to study law, but with no intention of practising at the bar. He gained sufficient knowledge to act as a competent magistrate and more than once was publicly complimented by the judges of the circuit for being efficient and impartial.

As a supporter of the Societies for the Reformation of Manners, he was working on a publication Corpus Legum de Moribus Reformandis shortly before his death.

Until the age of 42 he worked as a lay churchman and then he entered holy orders, encouraged by the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Wake, who had been bishop of Lincoln in Disney's early days. He was ordained priest in Lincoln Cathedral in 1719 by the bishop of Lincoln, Edmund Gibson, and immediately took the nearby livings of Croft and Kirkby-on-Bain. He resigned in 1722 to become vicar of St. Mary's Church, Nottingham.

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