Joseph Beaumont

Joseph Beaumont (13 March 1616 – 23 November 1699) was an English clergyman, academic and poet.

The son of John Beaumont, clothier, and of Sarah Clarke, his wife, he was born at Hadleigh, Suffolk, on 13 March 1616. He was educated at Hadleigh grammar school, and proceeded to Cambridge in 1631, where he was admitted as a pensioner to Peterhouse, Cambridge. He took his degree of B.A. in 1634, and became a fellow of his college in 1636, the master then being John Cosin. Richard Crashaw, the poet, had now passed from Pembroke College to Peterhouse, and in 1638 he and Beaumont received their degree of M.A. together

In 1644 he was one of the royalist fellows ejected from Cambridge, and he retired to Hadleigh, where he sat down to write his epic poem of Psyche. Beaumont fared particularly well during the Commonwealth. From 1643 he held the rectory of Kelshall in Hertfordshire, as non-resident, and in 1646 he added to this, or exchanged it for, the living of Elm-cum-Emneth in Cambridgeshire. He was appointed in the same year to a canonry of Ely.

In 1650 he became domestic chaplain to Matthew Wren, bishop of Ely, and held various other sinecures. The wealthy ward of the bishop, a Miss Brownrigg, fell in love with him, and they were married from Ely House in 1650. Beaumont and his wife resided for the next ten years at Tatingston Place, in Suffolk. During this period he wrote most of his minor poems.

At the Restoration of 1660 Beaumont was made Doctor of Divinity and one of the king's chaplains. Early in 1661 he went down to Ely to reside, at the bishop's request, but Mrs. Beaumont caught the fen fever, and died on 31 May 1662. She was buried in Ely Cathedral. During his wife's fatal illness Beaumont was appointed master of Jesus College, Cambridge, in succession to John Pearson; and he moved to Cambridge with his six young children, only one of whom lived to manhood. He restored Jesus Chapel at his own expense; then on 24 April 1663 he was admitted master of Peterhouse.

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