John Swete

Rev. John Swete (born John Tripe) (baptised 13 August 1752 – 25 October 1821) of Oxton House, Kenton in Devon, was a clergyman, landowner, artist, antiquary, historian and topographer and author of the Picturesque Sketches of Devon consisting of twenty illustrated journals of Devonshire scenery. He was a connoisseur of landscape gardening, and much of his Travel Journals consist of his commentary of the success or otherwise of the landscaping ventures of his gentry friends, neighbours and acquaintances in Devon. He himself undertook major building and landscaping works at Oxton.

John Tripe was born in 1752 in Ashburton, Devon, England, in his father's home, (which in 1997 was serving as the Golden Lion Hotel). He was the son Nicholas Tripe, a surgeon, by his wife Rebecca Yard. He was educated at Ashburton Free School and with the assistance of Sir Robert Palk, 1st Baronet (1717–1798) of Haldon House in the parish of Kenn, near Exeter, went to Eton College in 1769 and then later to University College, Oxford. Tripe graduated with a B.A. in 1774 and obtained an M.A. in 1777. In 1775, he became a curate at Highweek, Newton Abbot and in 1776 he was appointed curate at Kenn. In 1781, he was made a prebendary of the Diocese of Exeter.

In 1781 by a private Act of Parliament, John Tripe adopted the surname and arms of Swete in lieu of his patronymic, in order to comply with the terms of a bequest from Mrs. Esther Swete (1712-1781) formerly of 30 Great George Street,Westminster, of Traine House in Modbury and of Preston in Ermington, Devon, and of Bath in Somerset, a relative of the Yard family of Chudleigh, of which family was John Tripe's mother. She was born Esther Prickman, daughter and sole heiress of Thomas Prickman (d.1728) of Falmouth in Cornwall. She was a minor aged 16 at her father's death, and by his will he left her in the guardianship of Adrian Swete (1670-1733) of Traine, Modbury, Sheriff of Devon in 1725, and his sister Philippa Swete, who in 1728 married her off at the age of 16 to their 55-year-old youngest brother (as his 2nd wife) Captain Mayne Swete (1673-1735), whose first wife, Grace Walrond, had left him an estate in Falmouth, Antigua, inherited from her deceased first husband William Wainwright. Mayne Swete moved to Antigua and was a member of the Assembly in 1704 and 1715. Mayne Swete had by his wife Esther Prickman an only child, Adrian John Swete (1731-1755), who after having received his BA at Balliol College, Oxford in 1751, died unmarried in 1755. He was godfather to John Tripe (later Rev. John Swete). He was the last of the Swetes of Modbury and bequeathed his estates to his mother Esther, who treated her son's godson as the grandson she never had, and made him her heir. Her mural monument survives in Ermington Church, where she was buried, erected by Rev. John Swete, inscribed as follows:

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