boy thus educated will be a walking encyclopædia.’ At this period in his life Wrangham was a constant figure in the most intellectual society of London. Towards the close of 1795 he was presented by Humphrey Osbaldeston, with ‘almost unsolicited patronage,’ to the rectory of Hunmanby-with-Muston, near Filey, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and through his recommendation became vicar of the neighbouring parish of Folkton. After the Inclosure Act the living of Hunmanby was ‘something better than 600l. a year’ (Atlantic Monthly, January 1894, p. 66). A print by Bewick of its church and of the vicarage-house, which was much improved by Wrangham, appears on the titles of many of his works, and in John Cole's ‘Antiquarian Trio’ are lines by him on the acacia, his ‘favourite tree at Hunmanby.’ He collected there a remarkable library, which contained in 1825 no fewer than fifteen thousand volumes (Dibdin, Library Companion, p. xxi). It was said that ‘the book-shelves began at the front door and ran up into the garret and down to the cellar’ (Mozley, Reminiscences, i. 42; cf. Pryme, Recollections, pp. 246–8).
For some years after leaving the university Wrangham competed for the academical rewards at Cambridge. He won four times the Seaton prize—in 1794 with a poem on the ‘Restoration of the Jews’ (Cambridge, 1795, with a dedication to Basil Montagu, and included in ‘Musæ Seatonianæ,’ 1808); in 1800 with ‘The Holy Land’ (Cambridge, 1800, and also in ‘Musæ Seatonianæ,’ 1808); in 1811 with ‘Sufferings of the Primitive Martyrs’ (Cambridge, 1812); and in 1812 with ‘Joseph made known to his brethren’ (Cambridge, 1812). His poem on the ‘Destruction of Babylon,’ rejected in 1795, was printed at the request of the judges, and included in the ‘Musæ Seatonianæ’ of 1808. That ‘On the Restoration of Learning in the East’ (1805), written for a prize offered by Claudius Buchanan [q. v.], was beaten by a poem of Charles Grant (afterwards Lord Glenelg) [q. v.], but the adjudicators asked for its publication (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. ix. 534–5). He printed in 1805 ‘A Dissertation on the Best Means of civilising the Subjects of the British Empire in India,’ and in 1807 ‘A Sermon on the Translation of the Scriptures into the Oriental Languages,’ which was preached before the university of Cambridge; both works were composed under the system of prizes established by Buchanan. His poem ‘On the Death of Saul and Jonathan’ was published in 1813.
Wrangham was chaplain to three high sheriffs of Yorkshire, and from 1814 to 1834 was examining chaplain to Vernon Harcourt, the archbishop of York, a position which secured for him high preferment. The archbishop (who once remarked to Sydney Smith, ‘I consider Wrangham an ornament to my diocese,’ with the result that for some time his chaplain retained the sobriquet of ‘Ornament Wrangham’) bestowed on him on 28 June 1820 the archdeaconry of Cleveland, and allowed him in the same year to exchange the living of Folkton for that of Thorpe Bassett. This archdeaconry he surrendered on 2 Oct. 1828 on appointment to the archdeaconry of the East Riding, and on 12 Dec. 1823 the archbishop gave him the prebendal stall of Ampleforth in York Cathedral. His next act was to confer on Wrangham on 9 April 1825 his option of the fourth prebend at Chester Cathedral, which carried with it the right of institution to the rectory of Dodleston in Cheshire. Wrangham succeeded to this benefice on 3 Dec. 1827, whereupon he resigned that of Thorpe Bassett in favour of his son. He put up in Dodleston church a monument to Lord-chancellor Ellesmere.
Wrangham printed in 1821, 1822, and 1823, the charges which he had delivered to the clergy of his archdeaconry. They contained some reflections on the unitarians, and produced the publication of ‘A Letter to Ven. Francis Wrangham by Captain Thomas Thrush,’ 1822; ‘Letters addressed to Rev. James Richardson on Archdeacon Wrangham's Charge, by Captain Thrush,’ 1823; ‘Three Letters to Archdeacon Wrangham by Charles Wellbeloved,’ 1823; ‘Three Additional Letters by C. Wellbeloved,’ 1824; and ‘Three Letters to Mr. Wellbeloved by Rev. John Oxlee,’ 1824. Wellbeloved and Wrangham, though theological disputants, used to meet as whigs in social life. Sydney Smith said of this controversy: ‘If I had a cause to gain I would fee Wellbeloved to plead for me, and double-fee Wrangham to plead against me.’ Wrangham was a consistent advocate throughout his life of catholic emancipation, printing on that subject letters to the clergy of his archdeaconry and to individual persons, and a moderate high-churchman, supporting in education the system of Joseph Lancaster (Overton, English Church, 1800–33, pp. 27, 237, 266). ‘A tall slight man of exceedingly gentle and attractive manners’ (Hall, Book of Memories, p. 178), and revelling in society, he longer than any man kept up ‘the elegant tastes of youth and college’ (Spectator, 19 Feb. 1831). For a few years before his death he was slightly paralysed.
