Francis Wrangham (11 June 1769-27 December 1842) was the Archdeacon of East Riding. He was a noted author, translator, book collector and abolitionist.
Wrangham was born 11 June 1769 at Raysthorpe, near Malton, Yorkshire. He attended Hull Grammar School and took honors at Cambridge. He was ordained in 1793 he was ordained and became rector of Hunmanby in the East Riding. In England in that time it was common for well-connected or conspicuously talented clerics to accumulate church positions, hiring curates to do the actual work. Wrangham was the son of a prosperous farmer, his success resulted from his own talent and from an early position as tutor to the brother of the Duke of Manchester, and the lifelong friendship and patronage of the ducal family. In addition to being vicar of Humanby, Wrangham was vicar of Folkton, 1795–1821; Fellow of the Royal Society, 15 November 1804; examining chaplain to Vernon Harcourt, Archbishop of York, 1814–34; Archdeacon of Cleveland, 1820–28; vicar of Thorpe Bassett, 1821–27; Prebendary of York, 1823; rector of Dodleston, Cheshire, and Prebendary of Chester, 1827–42; and Archdeacon of the East Riding, 1828–40.[1]
Wrangham was a well-known and widely read poet, essayist and translator of Greek and Latin literature. He was an advocate for the abolition of slavery, the education of women, Catholic rights, charity schools, free libraries, charity hospitals and other progressive social ideas. One of his daughters married William Wilberforce's son. His theology was orthodox. He opposed deists, dissenters, and Unitarians, and supported foreign missions, writing one book on methods for converting India to Christianity.
He was the author in 1794 of The Restoration of the Jews, a poem advocating the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel, that won the Cambridge University Seaton poetry prize.[2] The poem includes a strong anti-slavery statement:
157: And thou bethink thee, Albion, ere too late,
158: Queen of the isles and mart of distant worlds,
159: That thou like Tyre (with hands as deep in blood,
160: Warm from the veins of Africa, and wealth
161: By arts more vile and darker guilt acquir'd)
162: Shalt meet an equal doom. The day will rise...[3]
Other Wrangham, prize-winning poems well-known at the time, include ‘The Holy Land’, ‘Sufferings of the Primitive Martyrs’, ‘Joseph Made Known to his Brethren’, and ‘The Destruction of Babylon.’ Wrangham's first book of poems is noteworthy because it contained a translation of one of Wrangham's Latin poems by Coleridge, and one of Wrangham's French poems Wordsworth. His books of poetry include The Raising of Jaïrus' Daughter (1804); A Poem on the Restoration of Learning in the East (1805); Death of Saul and Jonathan (1813); Poetical Sketches of Scarborough (1813); Poems (1814); and The Quadrupeds' Feast (1830.)
Wrangham's published translations from ancient Greek, Latin, French, and Italian include A Few Sonnets Attempted from Petrarch in Early Life (1817); The Lyrics of Horace (1821) a translation of Virgil's Eclogues (1830); and Homerics (1834), translations of Iliad, book 3, and Odyssey, book 5. He published numerous sermons and pamphlets on political topics, and wrote regularly for Blackwood's Magazine, the Gentleman's Magazine, and the Classical Journal.
Wrangham was a member of the Roxburghe Club.
He is buried in the lady chapel of Chester Cathedral.
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