Michael Tyson (antiquary)

Michael Tyson (1740–1780) was an English clergyman, academic, antiquary and artist.

He was born in the parish of Stamford All Saints on 19 November 1740, the only child of Michael Tyson (d. 22 February 1794, aged 83), dean of Stamford and archdeacon of Huntingdon, by his first wife, Elizabeth Curtis of Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire. He entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1759, became a scholar, and studied Greek under the Rev. John Cowper, brother of William Cowper, the poet. He graduated B.A. (11th Wrangler) in 1764, M.A. in 1767, and B.D. in 1775, and in 1767 was elected to a fellowship at his college.

In the autumn of 1766 Tyson accompanied Richard Gough in a tour, of which he kept a journal, through the north of England and Scotland; during the journey he was made a burgess of Glasgow (12 September 1766) and of Inverary (17 September) He returned to residence at college, and devoted himself to etching and botany. With Israel Lyons the younger he made trips in search of rare plants around Cambridge.

Tyson was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London on 2 June 1768, and Fellow of the Royal Society on 11 February 1779. On 17 March 1769 he made himself conspicuous at Cambridge by voting with John Jebb in a minority of two against the Tory address to George III.

Tyson was ordained deacon by John Green at Whitehall chapel on 11 March 1770, and until 1772 was minister of Sawston, Cambridgeshire. For a time he was dean of his college, and he was bursar about 1774 when he succeeded to the cure of St. Benedict's Church in Cambridge. In 1776 Tyson became Whitehall preacher. In the same year he and the Rev. Thomas Kerrich made a catalogue of the prints in the university library at Cambridge.

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