Sir William Ashburnham, 4th Baronet

Sir William Ashburnham, 4th Baronet (16 January 1710 – 4 September 1797) was a Church of England priest and also a baronet.

Sir William Ashburnham

Family

William Ashburnham was the son of Sir Charles Ashburnham, the 3rd baronet of Bromham, Guestling, Sussex. William succeeded to the title as 4th Baronet Ashburnham, on 3 October 1762. He married Margaret daughter of Thomas Pelham of Lewes, in Guestling and had a son William who became the M.P. for Hastings.[1]

Education

Ashburnham matriculated in 1728 and then went on to study at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge where he received a B.A. in 1732–1733.

William Ashburnham was elected a fellow[2] of Corpus Christi in 1733–1735, received his M.A. (Lit. Reg.[3] ) in 1739, and granted DD in 1749.[4]

Career

Ashburnham was ordained 1733 and appointed chaplain to the Royal Hospital Chelsea in 1741.[1] The following year, 1742 he became Vicar of St Peter Bexhill, Sussex.[5] He was made Dean of Chichester in 1742 and in 1743 canon residentiary of St Paul's Cathedral (a preferment he kept in commendam with the see[6]).[7] Then from 1754 he was Bishop of Chichester for 44 years till his death in 1797, one of the longest episcopates for the see of Chichester.[7] Ashburnham was also rector of Guestling, 1743–1797.[5]

During 1767, while Bishop of Chichester, Ashburnham was asked by the dean and chapter to reduce the number of professional adult male singers in the choir (known as lay vicars).[8] The establishment had been for eight.[8] Ashburnham issued statutes to reduce the number to four, their wages immediately being increased by dividing amongst them the stipend originally allotted to the whole body.[8]

The current Chichester Cathedral choir has an establishment for six lay vicars.[9]

William Ashburnham died 4 September 1797.[4]

Arms

Coat of arms of Sir William Ashburnham, 4th Baronet

Crest Out of a ducal coronet Or an ash tree Proper Escutcheon Gules a fess between six mullets Argent Motto Will God, And I Shall [10]

See also

• Ashburnham baronets
• Earl of Ashburnham

References

1. Kimber. The baronetage of England. p. 194
2. Fellow– A senior member of a college, supported to a greater or lesser extent by, or enjoying perquisites from the college's endowment.
3. .Lit. Reg.–Litterae Regiae: royal mandates directing the conferring of a degree
4. "Ashburnham, William (ASBN728W)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
5. Persons: Ashburnham, William (1733–1797) in "CCEd, the Clergy of the Church of England database" (Accessed online, 6 October 2017)
6. Commendam–the temporary holding of a benefice, with the right to its revenues, by a cleric or layman in the absence of a proper incumbent: he was said to hold the benefice in commendam.
7. Stephens. Memorials of the South Saxon See. p. 310
8. Stephen . Memorials of the South Saxon See. p. 346
9. Chichester Cathedral choir information
10. Burke's Peerage. 1949.

Sources

• "Chichester Cathedral Website". The Dean and Chapter, Chichester Cathedral. Retrieved 4 February 2012.
• Camden, William (1701). Britannia Vol 1 (English ed.). London: Joseph Wild.
• Kimber, E; Johnson, R (1771). The baronetage of England: containing a genealogical and Historical Account of all the English Baronets. London: G. Woodfall, J. Fuller, E. Johnson et al.
• Lower, Mark Anthony (1865). The Worthies of Sussex. Lewes, Sussex: Sussex Advertiser.
• Morris, John, ed. (1976). Domesday Book: Sussex. Chichester: Phillimore. ISBN 0-85033-145-5.
• "National archives". UK Government. Retrieved 4 February 2012.
• Stephens, W.R.W. (1876). Memorials of the South Saxon See and Cathedral Church of Chichester. London: Bentley.
• Venn, J; Venn, J. A., eds. (1922–1958). Alumni Cantabrigienses (10 vols). Cambridge University Press.