Reverend Dr. East Apthorp

   User ID: 1656.

  General Notes:

East Apthorp (1733–1816), Church of England clergyman and author, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, the fifth of the fifteen children of Charles Apthorp (1698–1758), merchant of Boston, and his wife, Grizzel, daughter of John Eastwick, a Jamaica merchant. Entering Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1751, Apthorp took a bachelor's degree in 1753 and was awarded the prestigious chancellor's prize for achievement in classical studies. He was ordained as deacon in 1755.
Apthorp was elected a fellow of Jesus College in 1758, but news of his father's death caused his return home. In January 1759 he was invited to serve as minister to the Anglican congregation of Cambridge, Massachusetts. On 27 August 1761 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Eliakim Hutchinson, niece of the future governor Thomas Hutchinson, and granddaughter of the former governor William Shirley; they had eight children.
On 15 October 1761 Apthorp officially opened Christ Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the sermon he delivered, "The Constitution of a Christian Church", was his first publication. Perhaps it was this sermon, along with the palatial nature of his recently completed parsonage (Apthorp House), that touched off the events that became known as the Apthorp–Mayhew controversy, a pamphlet war with Jonathan Mayhew, the popular and outspoken minister of the Congregational West Church, Boston, which some say predicted the later rebellion. It was Mayhew who first used the phrase "no taxation without representation!".
Apthorp's growing unpopularity prompted his permanent return to England in September 1764. After receiving an appointment to the vicarage of Croydon, he settled into a life of scholarship and domesticity. Following the death of his wife, Elizabeth, he married Anne Crich, a daughter of John Crich, of Thurlow, Suffolk, in 1787.
In 1780, Archbishop Cornwallis awarded Apthorp a DD, along with the rectorship of St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, London. Apthorp published fifteen books and pamphlets. He was elected to a prebendary of St Paul's Cathedral in 1790 and to the prebend of Finsbury in 1793. East Apthorp died on 16 April 1816 and was buried in the chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge.
Source: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

East married Elizabeth Hutchinson on 27 Aug 1761. (Elizabeth Hutchinson died on 28 Jan 1782.)

  Marriage Notes:

Reference Number:14845

East next married Ann Crich, daughter of John Crich and Unknown, on 6 Mar 1787. (Ann Crich died in 1824 in Cambridge.)

  Marriage Notes:

Reference Number:14787