John Hulse

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John Hulse (1708 - 1790) was an English divine known as the founder of the "Hulsean lectures" at Cambridge University.

He was born at Middlewich, in Cheshire, as the eldest of a family of nineteen. Entering St John's College, Cambridge, in 1724, he graduated in 1728; and on taking orders (in 1732) was presented to a small country curacy. His father having died in 1753, Hulse succeeded to his estates in Cheshire, where, owing to feeble health, he lived in retirement till his death in December 1790.

Hulse bequeathed his estates to Cambridge University for the purpose of maintaining two divinity scholars (£30 a year each) at St John's College, of founding a prize for a dissertation, and of instituting the offices of Christian advocate and of Christian preacher or Hulsean lecturer.

By a statute in 1860 the Hulsean professorship of divinity was substituted for the office of Christian-advocate, and the lectureship was considerably modified. The first course of lectures under the benefaction was delivered in 1820. In 1830 the number of annual lectures or sermons was reduced from twenty to eight; after 1861 they were further reduced to a minimum of four. The annual value of the Hulse endowment is between £800 and £900, of which eight-tenths go to the professor of divinity and one-tenth to the prize and lectureship respectively.

An account of the Hulsean lectures from 1820 to 1894 is given in J. Hunt's Religious Thought in the 19th Century, 332-338; among the lecturers have been:

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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