Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/12

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Mores
6
Mores

must be an error. Hooker says that he was nominated to the deanery of Exeter, but that he died before presentation. He died at Menheniot, between May and October 1554, and was buried in the church.

While vicar of Menheniot he taught the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Commandments in English, the Cornish language having been in use before. A discourse by him, on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, was transcribed by the Rev. Lawrence Travers, vicar of Quethiock, Cornwall. He gave to the library of Oriel College, Oxford, three works (Shadwell, Reg. Orielense, i. 398).

[Oliver's Eccl. Antiquities, ed. 1840, ii. 184-188; Oliver's Monasticon, p. 206; Foster's Alumni Oxon. ; Boase's Eeg. Univ. Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), i. 63 ; Boase's Exeter College, pp. xvii-xviii, 29, 200-2 ; Weaver's Somerset Incumbents, p. 143 ; Wood's Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 24, 35, 82-3, 104; Wood's Univ. of Oxford, ed. Gulch, vol. ii. pt. i. pp. 45-6 ; Wood's Oxford Colleges, ed. Gutch, p. 646 ; Prince's Devon Worthies, ed. 1810, pp. 600-2; Moore's Devon, ii. 235-6 ; Journ. Koy. Instit. of Cornwall, October 1864 pp. 76-7, April 1865 pp. 36-7; Burnet's Reformation, ed. Pococke, ii. 210-211, 424-6, v. 601; Foxe's Monuments, ed. Townsend,vi. 397-411, 536; Maclean's Sir Peter Carew, pp. v, 159-64; Journal of State Papers (Foreign and Domestic, vol. v.), 1531-2, p. 6.]

W. P. C.


MORES, EDWARD ROWE (1731–1778), antiquary, born on 13 Jan. 1730, was son of Edward Mores, rector of Tunstall, Kent, and author of 'The Pious Example, a discourse occasioned by the death of Mrs. Anne Mores,' London, 1725; he married Miss Windsor, the sister of an undertaker in Union Court, Broad Street, and died in 1740 (Nichols, Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, i. xvii.-xx. 58). In the same year Edward Rowe entered Merchant Taylors' School (Register, ed. Robinson, ii.96), and proceeded thence to Oxford, matriculating as a commoner of Queen's College on 25 June 1746 (Foster, Alumni Oxon., 1715-1886, iii. 978), and graduating B.A. in 1750, and M.A. in 1753. At Oxford he attracted attention by the extraordinary range and depth of his knowledge and the eccentricities of his conduct. His father wished him to take orders, but whether he did so is uncertain. In 1752 he was elected F.S.A., being the first new member after the grant of a charter to the society in November 1751; and in 1754 he was one of a committee for examining the society's minute books, with a view to selecting papers worthy of publication. After travelling abroad for some time he took up his residence at the Heralds' College, intending to become a member of that society, but about 1760 he retired to an estate left him by his father at Low Leyton, Essex. There he built a whimsical house, called Etlow Place, on a plan of one which he had seen in France. He used to mystify his friends by declaring that he had been created D.D. at the Sorbonne, and attired himself in some academical costume which he called that of a Dominican friar. He considered Latin the only language adapted to devotion and for universal use, and composed a creed in it, with a kind of mass on the death of his wife, of which he printed a few copies in his own house, under the disguised title of 'Ordinale Quotidianum, 1685. Ordo Trigintalis.' Of his daughter's education he was particularly careful. From her earliest infancy he talked to her principally in Latin. She was sent to a convent at Rouen for further training, and was there converted to Romanism, at which he pretended to be very angry.

The Society for Equitable Assurances, which had been first suggested by James Dodson [q. v.], owes its existence to Mores. He applied for a charter in 1761, but, failing of success, he, with sixteen more of the original subscribers, resolved to establish their society by deed. It was arranged that Mores should be perpetual director, with an annuity of 100l. In order to float the society, he published in 1762 'A Short Account of the Society for Equitable Assurances, &c.,' 8vo (7th edit. 1767), in 1766 'The Statutes' and 'Precedents of sundry Instruments relating to the Constitution and Practice of the Society,' 8vo, and in 1768 the 'Deed of Settlement . . .with the Declaration of Trust,' 8vo, and a 'List of the Policies and other printed Instruments of the Society,' 8vo; but some disputes arising between him and the original members, he declined to act further (see Papers relating to the Disputes with the Charter Fund Proprietors in the Equitable Society, 1769).

Towards the close of his life Mores fell into negligent and dissipated habits. He died at Low Leyton on 28 Nov. 1778, and was buried by his wife in Walthamstow churchyard. By his marriage with Susannah Bridgman (1730-1767), daughter of a Whitechapel grocer, he had a son, Edward Rowe Mores, who married in 1779 a Miss Spence, and a daughter, Sarah, married in 1774 to John Davis, house decorator of Walthamstow. His large collections of books, manuscripts, engravings, and printing types were dispersed by sale in August 1779. 'The more valuable portion of his books and manuscripts was purchased by Richard Gough [q. v.], and