John Lewis (antiquarian)

John Lewis (29 August 1675 – 16 January 1747) was an English clergyman and antiquary.

Born in the parish of St. Nicholas, Bristol, on 29 August 1675, he was the eldest son of John Lewis, wine cooper in the city. Francis Lewis, vicar of Worth Matravers, Dorset, was his paternal grandfather. His mother was Mary, eldest daughter of John Eyre, merchant, of Poole. He received his education first under Samuel Conant, rector of Lichet-Matravers, next at Wimborne grammar school, under John Moyle and afterwards under John Russel in the grammar school at Poole. He acted as assistant to Russel, who, after he had moved to Wapping, obtained for Lewis admission to the free school of Ratcliff Cross, belonging to the Coopers' Company.

On leaving school Lewis became tutor to the sons of Daniel Wigfall, a Turkey and lead merchant, and afterwards, 30 March 1694, was admitted a batler of Exeter College, Oxford, under the tuition of George Verman, a friend of Conant. While at the university he became assistant in the free school of Poole in 1696. After graduating B.A. on 14 October 1697 he returned to Russel at Wapping, and shortly afterwards was ordained deacon.

In April 1698 he became curate of Acrise, Kent, and was collated to the rectory of the parish on 4 September 1699. In 1702, Archbishop Thomas Tenison having ordered the sequestration of the rectory of Hawkinge, near Dover, licensed Lewis to serve the cure, and in 1705 presented him to the vicarage of St. John the Baptist, Margate. The archbishop collated him to the rectory of Saltwood, with the chapel of Hythe, and to the desolate rectory of Eastbridge in 1706, and subsequently removed him to the vicarage of Minster, to which he was instituted on 10 March 1709.

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