Life

George Smalridge was born at Lichfield

Lichfield

Lichfield is a cathedral city, civil parish and district in Staffordshire, England. One of eight civil parishes with city status in England, Lichfield is situated roughly north of Birmingham...

, son of the Sheriff of Lichfield Thomas Smalridge, George received his early education, this being completed at Westminster School

Westminster School

The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...

 and at Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...

.

His political opinions were largely modelled on those of his friend Francis Atterbury

Francis Atterbury

Francis Atterbury was an English man of letters, politician and bishop.-Early life:He was born at Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, where his father was rector. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he became a tutor...

, with whom he was associated at Oxford and elsewhere. After being a tutor at Christ Church, he was minister of two chapels in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and for six or seven years he acted as deputy for William Jane

William Jane

William Jane was an English academic and clergyman, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford from 1680.-Life:The son of Joseph Jane, he was born at Liskeard, Cornwall, where he was baptised on 22 October 1645. He was educated at Westminster School, elected student of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1660,...

, the regius professor of divinity at Oxford; his Jacobite

Jacobitism

Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...

 opinions, however, prevented him from securing this position when it fell vacant in 1707.

In 1711, he was made dean of Carlisle Cathedral

Carlisle Cathedral

The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, otherwise called Carlisle Cathedral, is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Carlisle. It is located in Carlisle, in Cumbria, North West England...

 and canon of Christ Church, and in 1713 he succeeded Atterbury as dean of Christ Church. In the following year he was appointed bishop of Bristol

Bishop of Bristol

The Bishop of Bristol heads the Church of England Diocese of Bristol in the Province of Canterbury, in England.The present diocese covers parts of the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire together with a small area of Wiltshire...

, but retained his deanery. In 1715 Smalridge refused to sign the declaration against the pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart

James Francis Edward Stuart

James Francis Edward, Prince of Wales was the son of the deposed James II of England...

, defending his action in his Reasons for not signing the Declaration. In other ways also he showed animus against the house of Hanover

House of Hanover

The House of Hanover is a deposed German royal dynasty which has ruled the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg , the Kingdom of Hanover, the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Kingdom of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

, but his only punishment was his removal from the post of lord almoner to the king.

The bishop was esteemed by Swift

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...

, Steele

William Steele

William Steele was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1654. He was Lord Chancellor of Ireland....

, Whiston

William Whiston

William Whiston was an English theologian, historian, and mathematician. He is probably best known for his translation of the Antiquities of the Jews and other works by Josephus, his A New Theory of the Earth, and his Arianism...

 and other famous men of his day, while Dr Johnson declared his sermons to be of the highest class. Would fill any church it was said.
George was persecuted by those who envied him.

George was an extremely agreeable man, highly thought of among the royals and the rich, his social standing was enviable, he extinguished the fires of talk wherever he went,
Due to jealousy they kept moving him to poor churches, with a handful of people only to surprise them all by filling them to standing room only in a very short time, so they would move him again, and again, due to his popularity, and they had no real evidence against him, allegations made against him were published but never retracted, finally they had no choice they gave him Bristol one of the poorest churches in the land, they made him Bishop of Bristol, on arrival he found people starving, and a congregation of 12, the people walked for miles to listen to him he gave them hope, the cathedral was full with standing room only, his family fed the poor with soup going without themselves to feed others, then after months of struggling to help he was the benifactor of the Lottery £20,000. One of Georges pupils from Christchurch was greatly influenced by Georges teachings, John Wesley, on arriving back from the USA, George offered him a hall near the cathedral to teach his Methodist religion.

Works

• Sixty Sermons, preached on Several Occasions, 1726. Other editions 1827, 1832, 1853 and 1862.

Further reading

• William Gibson, 'Altitudinarian Equivocation: George Smalridge's Churchmanship', in Gibson & Ingram, eds., Religious Identities in Britain, 1660-1832, Ashgate, 2005
• Richard Sharp, ‘Smalridge, George (1662–1719)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 12 Jan 2009

External links