Person:Richard Valpy (1)

From Oxford Dictionary of national Biography: Valpy, Richard (1754-1836), schoolmaster, was born at his father's landed estate in St John's, Jersey, on 7 December 1754, the eldest of the six children of Richard Valpy and Catherine, daughter of John Chevalier. His younger brother was Edward Valpy. After some local schooling, in 1764 he was sent to the college of Valognes, Normandy, where he became fluent in French but acquired an accent that some found execrable. In 1769 he transferred to Southampton grammar school and subsequently to Guildford grammar school, where as a pupil he published by subscription a volume of nondescript verses, entitled Poetical Blossoms.At Southampton, Valpy had longed for a naval career, only to be dissuaded by his mother's entreaties. Shortly afterwards his enthusiasm shifted to acting and he resolved to call on Richard Garrick for advice, but his courage failed him on that actor's doorstep. Instead, in 1773 he entered Pembroke College, Oxford, as a Morley scholar. Having graduated BA, and following his ordination, in 1777 he became second master at Bury St Edmunds School. In June of the following year he married Martha, daughter of John Cornelius of Caundé, Guernsey; they had a daughter. In 1781 he was appointed headmaster of Reading School, and on 30 May 1782 he married, second, Mary, daughter of Henry Benwell of Caversham and sister of his pupil William Benwell. Mary, who was totally deaf, gave birth to six sons and four daughters. The second son was Abraham Valpy.Reading School was at that time struggling, with only twenty-three pupils. By 1791 Valpy had raised their numbers to 120, of whom many were the sons of Berkshire magnates and gentry. His boarding fees of £50-£60 a year were steep but he energetically tackled the poor state of the school buildings. He persuaded Reading corporation to lease him the headmaster's house, at that time rented on an annual basis, for the period of three lives; he added a hall, a library, and an extra wing. Teaching took place in the basement of the town hall, constantly disrupted by the noise of borough business overhead; the civic fathers having refused to pay for new premises, in 1790 Valpy built a separate schoolroom with his own funds. Hitherto boarders had been billeted in the town but he leased from the corporation the abbey's former hospitium, remembered as both insanitary and draughty.Notwithstanding these physical discomforts pupils held Valpy in high esteem and affection. Accepting him as a mighty flogger they relished his playing the part, as an actor manqué, of a character unafraid to mock himself. He made all the boys take plenty of exercise, from cricket to swimming, but his reputation rested mainly on the high quality of his scholarship. In 1788 he was elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and a few years later he proceeded BD and DD. Of the pupils he encouraged a number are noticed in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Bulkeley Bandinel, Sir William Bolland, Peter Paul Dobree, John Jackson (1811-1885), Sir John Keane, John Lemprière, Henry Alworth and John Merewether, and Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd. His alumni were regularly supportive; in 1800 they subscribed for a portrait of him by John Opie, and after his death they erected a statue of him, by Samuel Nixon, in St Laurence's Church, Reading.Valpy was a tall and imposing figure who had a passionate interest-fuelled by an exceptionally retentive mind-in politics, military and naval affairs, agriculture, and education, especially of the poor. Early in his life he had gambled heavily. He fostered among pupils a love of English literature, then rare in schools, and adapted English as well as Greek and Latin plays for the boys to perform. During the triennial visitation of the school from Oxford he organized plays in the town hall to benefit local charities. He declined two bishoprics and also the headmastership of Rugby, disliking that school's curriculum and fees and citing Mrs Valpy's reluctance to move.Valpy's textbooks made him widely known; a Greek grammar and Latin grammar (1809) were followed by Latin delectus (1814) and Greek delectus (1816), which offered passages for translation into English, and by works on mythology and history. Some townspeople, resentful of their free school being turned into an academy for the well off, complained that the classics were crowding out more useful mathematical and commercial subjects. Such hostility to the school clearly encouraged Reading corporation to deny it much-needed funds, and it never developed, as comparable foundations were doing, into a great nineteenth-century independent school. Valpy stayed on for too long, not retiring until he was in his mid-seventies in 1830, leaving behind only sixty-five pupils. He moved to the rectory at Stradishall, Suffolk, a living he had held since 1787. By then his sight was failing and he became accident-prone. He died on 28 March 1836, at his eldest son's house in Earl's Terrace, Kensington, London, after breaking his leg in a fall, and was buried in Kensal Green. His wife had predeceased him.Valpy's sixth and youngest son, Francis Edward Jackson Valpy (1797-1882), Church of England clergyman and schoolmaster, was born at the headmaster's house, Reading School, on 22 February 1797. He was educated at Reading School and, from 1815, at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a Bell scholar and where he graduated BA in 1819. Six years later, in 1825, he married Eliza, daughter of John Pullen of Canonbury; they had eight sons. In 1826 he was ordained and in 1830 he was made headmaster of Reading School. He inherited a court judgment, ignored by his father, requiring grammar schools to teach classics free to local pupils. Reading people, still aggrieved over the school, disinclined the corporation to repair the increasingly crumbling leasehold premises. Though Valpy resembled his father in scholarship and preaching eloquence he was not an inspiring teacher and lacked the decisiveness required to overcome the school's problems with the town. By 1837 it had only twenty boarders and seventeen day-boys, nine with free places.In 1839 Valpy resigned and, until 1842, he taught at Burton upon Trent School. From 1845 to 1873 he was rector of Garveston, Norfolk, where in 1866 he married his second wife, Mary, daughter of John Champion of Guernsey. He published several Greek textbooks, etymological dictionaries of Greek and Latin, editions of Sophocles' Ajax and Electra, and The Course of Nature … in Vindication of Scripture. He died on 28 November 1882 in London, whither he had retired, at 10 Regent's Park Terrace, Gloucester Gate, and was buried at Garveston. He left £11,500.

Oxford Alumni, vol 4, p. 1463: Richard Valpy, son of Richard, of Isle of Jersey, gent, PEMBROKE COLL, matric 1773, aged 18, BA 1776, MA 1784, B & DD 1792, FSA, headmaster Henry VII School, Readding, 1781-1836, rector of Stradishall, Suffolk, 1787, author of Greek and Latin grammars, d. 28mar1836, father of Abraham, see Gent’s Mag 1836. Alumni Cantabrigiensis: Abraham John Valpy (b. 1787), brother of Francis E.J. (1815), 2nd son of Rev. Richard (schoolmaster, Pembroke Coll, Oxford) by his 2nd wife Mary, daughter of Henry Benwell of Caversham, Oxon). It is interesting that a daughter of John Pullen, father in law of Francis E.J., was married by Rev. Pullen, curate of Caversham. Abraham John Valpy, son of Richard, of Reading, is also in Oxford Alumni (vol 4, p. 1463), with a reference to Gent’s Mag, 1855.

Mary Benwell was daughter of Henry Benwell of Caversham and sister of Richard Valpy’s pupil William Benwell. The second son was Abraham Valpy. Mary Benwell (b. 1760) married Rev. Dr. Richard Valpy 30may1782 at Caversham (web, beta-familysearch, batch M03336-2, film no. 95223). Rev. Dr. Valpy corresponded once with Lord Byron; Richard Valpy (1754-1836), educator, was buried at Kensal Green cemetery (web). Richard Valpy (1754-1836) and Mary Benwell had a daughter Penelope, who married Rev. Peter Dillwyn “Goosefair” French of Burton on Trent (information, D. Elfick).