Thomas Broughton (writer)

For other writers of this name, see Thomas Broughton (disambiguation).

Thomas Broughton (1704–1774), was an English clergyman, biographer, and miscellaneous writer, whose works include the libretto to Handel's Hercules.

Early life

He was born in London on 5 July 1704, the second child of John Broughton DD, who died in 1720, and his wife Mary Rutty.[1] His father had given up a Fellowship at Christ's College, Cambridge in 1701, a prerequisite at this time for marriage; and had a position as lecturer or reader in St Andrew's, Holborn, from 1706.[1][2][3] In 1703 he added a polemical work Psychologia to the controversial literature directed against William Coward's Second Thoughts Concerning the Human Soul, also referencing John Locke.[4][5] There was a reply from Samuel Bold.[6]

Broughton was educated at the school of St Andrew's, Holborn, and at Eton College from 1716 to 1720. He then attended St Paul's School, London. He matriculated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, having financial support through the Sons of the Clergy and gaining a scholarship that lasted until 1729, where he graduated B.A. in 1727. He graduated M.A in 1730.[1][7][8]

Priest

Broughton was ordained deacon by Richard Reynolds, Bishop of Lincoln.[9] Reynolds was a Whig in politics, and as a diocesan bishop faced issues of poorly educated candidates for the priesthood, and parishes with low incomes;[10][11] in July 1727 he ordained Broughton to Offley, Hertfordshire, where that year Thomas Osborn(e) came in as vicar.[9][12] In November 1727 Broughton took up a post in London as reader at the Temple Church.[1] He was ordained priest in 1728, according to Biographia Britannica by Edmund Gibson, likewise a Whig.[1][10][13]

Suffering from a speech impediment, Broughton initially struggled for acceptance at the Temple Church. He undertook a course of speech therapy as it existed at the period.[1][14] William Downing's 1739 account of the Middle Temple explained his duties as reading the service twice a day. The Inner Temple and Middle Temple alternated in making the appointment; Broughton was given a chamber in the Middle Temple, and £20 a year.[15]

In 1738 Broughton was appointed lecturer at St Ethelburga's Bishopsgate, a position he held to 1757.[9] In 1739 he became rector of Stepington (Stibbington), then in Huntingdonshire; the patron, the Duke of Bedford, also appointing him one of his chaplains.[7][16]

Through the influence of Thomas Sherlock, Master of the Temple and also Bishop of Salisbury, Broughton in 1744 was presented to the vicarage of Bedminster, near Bristol, with the chapels of St Mary Redcliffe, St. Thomas, and Abbot's Leigh annexed; he was a prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral.[1] The altarpiece triptych known as Sealing the Tomb by William Hogarth was a 1755 commission for St Mary Redcliffe, made by the church council.[17]

Thomas Broughton died on 21 December 1774 in Bristol.[7]

Writing

In 1732 Broughton published a controversial work against Christianity as Old as the Creation from 1730 by Matthew Tindal, a deist proponent of the primacy of natural religion over Christian revelation. In three volumes, his Christianity Distinct from the Religion of Nature won him immediate approval in the Inns of Court, and subsequent preferment in the Church.[1][18]

Broughton was a versatile writer. His works included the following:[7]

  • Bibliotheca historico-sacra (two volumes, 1737–9) on world religions, reissued in 1742 as Historical Dictionary of all Religions from the Creation of the World to the Present Times, a single volume.[1]
  • The Temple of Taste (1734), English translation of Voltaire's Le Temple du goût (1733 edition), verse. Attributed to Broughton, it was "free, sometimes incorrect". Its provenance may have been via Nicolas-Claude Thiriot, and there were some notes of explanation. Further editions appeared in Glasgow.[19]
  • A translation of part of Pierre Bayle's Dictionnaire Historique et Critique.
  • A revision for Protestant use of "Dorrell" (the Jesuit William Darrell),[20] a Catholic devotional book on set Sunday readings from the New Testament.
  • Original Poems and Translations (1743), an edition of miscellaneous works of John Dryden.[1][21]
  • Fifteen Sermons on Select Subjects (1778), posthumous.[22][23]

He contributed 120 articles—the lives marked "T"—in the first edition of Biographia Britannica.[7][23]

John Hawkins, in his Life of Johnson, credits Broughton with being the real translator of Jarvis's Don Quixote:

The fact is that Jarvis laboured at it many years, but could make but little progress, for being a painter by profession, he had not been accustomed to write, and had no style. Mr. Tonson, the bookseller, seeing this, suggested the thought of employing Mr. Broughton . . . who sat himself down to study the Spanish language, and in a few months acquired, as was pretended, sufficient knowledge thereof to give to the world a translation of "Don Quixote" in the true spirit of the original, and to which is prefixed the name of Jarvis.[7]

Librettist

Broughton knew Handel;[7] an article by Mark Hatcher suggests that Broughton may have invited him to play the Temple Church organ.[24]

Broughton wrote a libretto based on Women of Trachis by Sophocles and the ninth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses for the drama Hercules,[25] first performed at the Haymarket in 1745.[7] Handel's biographer, Paul Henry Lang, praises Broughton's libretto for its "good theatrical sense" and the way in which it peels away extraneous elements of the narrative, to concentrate on the central drama of jealousy.[25] It remained close to its classical sources, while expanding the role of Iole.[26]

Family

Broughton married in 1750 Anne Harris, daughter of the Rev. Thomas Harris, schoolmaster of his parish. They had seven children, six of whom survived him.[1][23][27]

  • Mary married Samuel Edwards (died 1815), a partner in Bristol Old Bank.[28][29]
  • Arthur Broughton (c.1758–1796), youngest child, was a physician and botanist.[30]

One of the daughters married the printer John Rudhall (died 1803), owner of Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, and died in 1823.[31] Rudhall was an associate of Thomas Chatterton, and some early verse by Chatteron appeared in the Journal.[32] He had a son John Broughton Rudhall;[33][34] John Mathew Gutch bought the Journal in 1803, and John Broughton Rudhall ran it with him, until 1807.[35][36]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Smith, Ruth. "Broughton, Thomas (1704–1774)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3589. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ "Broughton, John (BRTN690J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  3. ^ "Broughton, Thomas (1694–1716)". The Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540–1835. CCEd Person ID 33600. Retrieved 10 January 2026.
  4. ^ Pfanner, Dario. "Coward, William (b. 1656/7, d. in or before 1725)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/6488. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  5. ^ Fletcher, Joseph (7 December 2021). William Blake as Natural Philosopher, 1788-1795. Anthem Press. p. 89. ISBN 978-1-78527-952-2.
  6. ^ O'Higgins, James (6 December 2012). Anthony Collins The Man and His Works. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 70. ISBN 978-94-010-3217-9.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h "Broughton, Thomas (1704-1774)" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  8. ^ "Broughton, Thomas (BRTN723T)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  9. ^ a b c "Broughton, Thomas (1727–1775)". The Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540–1835. CCEd Person ID 33600. Retrieved 10 January 2026.
  10. ^ a b Aston, Nigel (2023). Enlightened Oxford: The University and the Cultural and Political Life of Eighteenth-Century Britain and Beyond. Oxford University Press. p. 333. ISBN 978-0-19-924683-0.
  11. ^ Jacob, W. M. "Reynolds, Richard (1674–1744)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/23432. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  12. ^ "Thomas Osborne (OSBN719T)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  13. ^ Biographia Britannica: Or, The Lives Of The Most Eminent Persons Who Have Flourished in Great Britain And Ireland. Bathurst. 1780. p. ix.
  14. ^ Foyster, Elizabeth (8 August 2018). "'Fear of Giving Offence Makes Me Give the More Offence': Politeness, Speech and Its Impediments in British Society, c.1660–1800". Cultural and Social History. 15 (4): 487–508. doi:10.1080/14780038.2018.1518565.
  15. ^ Downing, William (1896). Observations on the Constitution, Customs, and Usuage [sic] of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple: Originally Written in the Year 1733 for the Use of Charles Worsley, Esqr. Society of the Middle Temple. p. 180.
  16. ^ Page, William; Proby, Granville; Ladds, S. Inskip, eds. (1936). "Parishes: Stibbington". A History of the County of Huntingdon: Volume 3. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 22 November 2013.
  17. ^ Uglow, Jennifer S. (1997). Hogarth: A Life and a World. Faber & Faber. p. 576. ISBN 978-0-571-16996-2.
  18. ^ Harrison, Peter (1990). 'Religion' and the religions in the English Enlightenment. Cambridge [England] ; New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 167. ISBN 052138530X.
  19. ^ Menant, Sylvain; Menant, Sylvain, eds. (1 January 1999). Œuvres complètes de Voltaire (in French). Vol. 9: Oeuvres de 1732-1733. Liverpool University Press. p. 35. ISBN 978-1-83553-434-2.
  20. ^ British Museum Department of Printed Books (1899). Catalogue of Printed Books: Bible part 3. W. Clowes. p. 1027/8.
  21. ^ Maguire, Laurie E.; Berger, Thomas L. (1998). Textual Formations and Reformations. University of Delaware Press. p. 285. ISBN 978-0-87413-655-5.
  22. ^ Broughton, Thomas (1778). Fifteen Sermons on Select Subjects. T. Cadell.
  23. ^ a b c Landgraf, Annette; Vickers, David (26 November 2009). The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia. Cambridge University Press. pp. 107–8. ISBN 978-0-521-88192-0.
  24. ^ Hatcher, Mark (2020). "Readers of the Temple: From the 16th to the 19th Century". Middle Templar Magazine.
  25. ^ a b Lang, Paul Henry (1996). George Frederic Handel. Courier Dover Publications. pp. 421–2. ISBN 9780486292274. Retrieved 22 June 2011.
  26. ^ Timms, Colin; Wood, Bruce (29 June 2017). Music in the London Theatre from Purcell to Handel. Cambridge University Press. p. 96. ISBN 978-1-107-15464-3.
  27. ^ Jesse, John Heneage (1875). Memoirs of celebrated Etonians. Vol. I. London: Richard Bentley & Son. p. 27.
  28. ^ Thoms, William John (1877). Notes and Queries. Oxford University Press. p. 5.
  29. ^ Cave, Charles Henry (1899). A History of Banking in Bristol from 1750 to 1899. Priv. print., W. C. Hemmons. p. 49.
  30. ^ Lièvre, Audrey le. "Broughton, Arthur (c 1758–1796)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3584. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  31. ^ The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle. E. Cave. 1823. p. 285.
  32. ^ Groom, Nick. "Chatterton, Thomas (1752–1770)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5189. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  33. ^ Gardner, Victoria E. M. (26 January 2016). The Business of News in England, 1760–1820. Springer. p. 145. ISBN 978-1-137-33639-2.
  34. ^ Hyett, Francis Adams; Bazeley, William (1897). The Bibliographer's Manual of Gloucestershire Literature: City of Bristol (including Chattertoniana) Alphabetical list of Bristol printers. Index of authors. Index of subjects. subscribers. p. 23.
  35. ^ Baigent, Elizabeth. "Gutch, John Mathew (1776–1861)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11780. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  36. ^ "The "Bristol Journals" of the Last Century". Bristol Times and Mirror. 12 August 1899. p. 3.

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1886). "Broughton, Thomas (1704–1774)". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 6. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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