Page:A catalogue of notable Middle Templars, with brief biographical notices.djvu/261

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Taylor — Thackeray.
241
TAYLOR, JOHN PITT.
County Court Judge.
1811—1888.

Admitted 1 November, 1833.

Third son of Thomas Taylor of Coombe, near Croydon. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, where he graduated in 1834. He was called to the Bar 9 June, 1837. In 1852 he was appointed a County Court Judge for the districts of Lambeth, Greenwich and Woolwich, which position he retained till his retirement in 1884. He died 17 July, 1888.

He was the author of a treatise on The Law of Evidence (1848), which still remains the standard text-book on the subject.


TEMPLE, WILLIAM JOHNSTON.
Essayist.
1739-1796.

Admitted 2 May, 1759.

Son and heir of William Temple of Berwick-on-Tweed, where he was baptized as "William Johnson" (his mother's name), 20 Dec. 1739. He was educated at Edinburgh University, where he had as a fellow-student James Boswell, with whom he contracted a life-long friendship, and who, at the Temple, shared his rooms in Farrar's Buildings. He was also a friend of Gray, Goldsmith, and Johnson. In 1766 he took Holy Orders and became Rector of Mamhead, near Exeter. He became chaplain to Bishop Keppel, and in 1776 Vicar of Gluvias, Cornwall, where he ended his days, 13 Aug. 1796.

He was the author of An Essay on the Clergy (1774); On the Abuse of Unrestrained Power (1778); Moral and Historical Memoirs (1779), and of a pamphlet on Jacobinism, and a sketch he wrote of the Character of Gray is incorporated in Dr. Johnson's Life of that poet.


TENTERDEN, BARON. See ABBOTT, CHARLES.


THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE.
Novelist.
1811—1863.

Admitted 3 June, 1831.

Eldest son of Richmond Thackeray of Calcutta, where he was born 18 July, 1811, and whence he came to England in 1817. He was sent to Charterhouse (the "Greyfriars" of his Novels), and entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1829, but never graduated. During his student days at the Temple he occupied chambers in Hare Court and read with Mr. Taprell, but law studies were evidently not congenial to him, for he describes the le^ curriculum as "one of the most cold-blooded prejudiced pieces of invention that ever a man was slave to." Nevertheless, he was called to the Bar 26 May, 1848, and from that date till 1855 occupied chambers at 10, Crown Office Row. By that time, however, he had become famous in the world of letters, and had nearly finished his most celebrated novel. Vanity Fair.

His literary career may be said to have begun in 1838 as a writer for The Times, and from that time to his death his contributions to periodical literature are too numerous to be detailed; but his independently published works appeared in the following order: The Paris Sketch Book (1840); The Second Funeral of Napoleon and The Chronicle of the Drum (1841); Comic Tales and Sketches (1841); The Irish Sketch Book (1843); Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Cairo (1846); Mrs. Perkinses Ball [Christmas Book] (1847); Vanity Fair [begun in monthly parts, Jan. 1847] (1848); Our Street [Christmas Book] (1847); The Book of Snobs [collected from Punch]( 1848); Dr. Birch and his Young Friends [Christmas Book] (1848); The History of Samuel Titmarsh and The Great Hoggarty