Monk. He graduated B.A. in 1810, M.A. in 1813, and S.T.B. in 1822.
Having received holy orders, he was at once appointed assistant preacher at the Temple by his father, who was the master. Father and son were regarded as equally effective and popular preachers there. He also delivered the Warburtonian lectures at Lincoln's Inn. His interests were wide, and he attended a regular course of anatomical lectures in London. He was a friend of the members of that little group of high-churchmen of whom Joshua Watson was the lay and Henry Handley Norris [q. v.] the clerical leader, and in 1811 he became editor of the ‘British Critic,’ which was the organ of his friends, and to which he was a frequent contributor. In 1816 he was appointed by the bishop of London (Dr. Howley) vicar of Kensington, and proved himself an active and conscientious parish priest. In the same year he was elected Christian advocate at Cambridge. In that capacity he published in 1819 ‘Remarks on Scepticism, especially as connected with the subject of Organisation and Life; being an Answer to the Views of M. Bichat, Sir T. C. Morgan, and Mr. Lawrence upon these points.’ His knowledge of anatomy and medicine enabled him to write with effect on such a subject, and, despite opposition, the book passed through a sixth edition in 1824. He was for several years examining chaplain to the bishop of Salisbury, who in 1823 gave him the mastership of St. Nicholas's Hospital and the prebend of South Grantham in Salisbury Cathedral. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society, in spite of an attempt to exclude him in consequence of his ‘Remarks on Scepticism.’ In 1823 he married the eldest daughter of John Delafield of Kensington; but within a few weeks he was stricken down with a fever, and died of a gradual decline at Winchester on 30 June 1824. He was buried in Winchester Cathedral, and a touching funeral sermon was preached on him at Kensington by his successor, Archdeacon Pott.
Rennell's promise of intellectual eminence is widely attested. Dr. Parr, in his ‘Letter to Dr. John Milner’ (1819), described him as standing ‘by profound erudition, and by various and extensive knowledge … among the brightest luminaries of our national literature or national church.’ Besides his youthful classical efforts, separate sermons, contributions to the ‘British Critic’ and other periodicals, and his ‘Remarks on Scepticism’ already noted, he published: 1. ‘Animadversions on the Unitarian Translation or Improved Version of the New Testament. By a Student of Divinity,’ 1811. 2. ‘Proofs of Inspiration on the grounds of distinction between the New Testament and the Apocryphal Volume … occasioned by the recent publication of the Apocryphal New Testament by Hone,’ 1822. 3. ‘A Letter to Henry Brougham, Esq., on his Durham Speech, and three Articles in the “Edinburgh Review”’ (anon. 1823), in which he defended the church and the clergy against a series of attacks upon their property and character. 4. ‘A Narrative of the Conversion and Death of Count Struensee by Dr. Munter,’ first translated into English by Dr. Wendeborn in 1774, with original notes, 1824.
[Some Account of the Life and Writings of the late Rev. Thomas Rennell, B.D., F.R.S., Vicar of Kensington and Prebendary of Salisbury; Churton's Memoir of Joshua Watson; Overton's English Church in the Nineteenth Century (1800–1833); Works of Dr. Samuel Parr, vol. iii. (ed. J. Johnston).]
RENNELL, THOMAS (1754–1840), dean of Winchester and master of the Temple, was born on 8 Feb. 1754 at Barnack in Northamptonshire, where his father, Thomas Rennell (1720–1798), a prebendary of Winchester, was rector. His mother, Elizabeth (d. 1773), was daughter of Richard Stone of Larkbear, Devonshire (Berry, Hampshire Genealogies). In 1766 Thomas was sent to Eton, and thence proceeded to King's College, Cambridge, where in due time he became a fellow. He was a diligent student, and though, as a King's man, he could not compete for mathematical honours, he obtained in 1778 one of the member's prizes for bachelors for the best Latin essay on ‘Government.’ He graduated B.A. in 1777, M.A. per lit. reg. in 1779, and D.D. in 1794. At Cambridge he made the acquaintance of Thomas James Mathias [q. v.], and contributed to the notes of his ‘Pursuits of Literature’ (1794–7). Mathias mentions him in the poem, in conjunction with Bishops Horsley and Douglas. Rennell left Cambridge on taking holy orders, and became curate to his father at Barnack. His ample leisure he devoted to theology. His father soon resigned his prebendal stall at Winchester in his favour, and in 1787 he undertook the charge of the populous parish of Alton. Subsequently, perhaps through the influence of the Marquis of Buckingham, he was presented to the rectory of St. Magnus, London Bridge. When he proceeded D.D. at Cambridge, in 1794, he preached a commencement sermon on the French revolution which impressed Pitt, who called him ‘the Demosthenes of the pulpit.’ In 1797 Pitt urged him to accept the mastership of the Temple. He resigned his prebendal stall next year, and devoted
