Philip Morant (6 October 1700, Jersey – 25 November 1770, Battersea) was an English clergyman, author and historian.
He was educated at Abingdon School and Pembroke College, Oxford,[1] eventually taking his Masters Degree at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge in 1729.
Ordained in 1722, he began his association with the county of Essex with a curacy at Great Waltham near Chelmsford in 1722.[2] He was the Chaplain of the English Episcopal Church in Amsterdam from 1732 to 1734. In 1737 he became both the Rector of St Mary-at-the-Walls, Colchester as well as Rector of Aldham in Essex.[3] During his time in Colchester, Morant wrote The History and Antiquities of Colchester, published in 1748; and his county history, The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex, published in two volumes between 1763 and 1768. He also conducted a number of excavations of Roman sites in and around the town. He married Anne Stebbing in 1739 and they had a daughter, Anna Maria. In 1755, Philip Morant was elected to the Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
After the death of his wife, he moved to his son-in-law's house in Battersea and was employed in the House of Lords, although he retained the living of both his parishes. He died in 1770 and is buried at Aldham.[4]
There is a contemporary memorial and a window of 1855 in his memory in the new church at Aldham (the memorial was moved in 1854), and there is a wooden plaque at St Mary-at-the-Walls dated 1966. The Morant Club was formed in Colchester in 1909 to investigate local archeology, but was dissolved in 1925.[5] In 1965, The Norman Way Secondary School in Prettygate, Colchester was renamed Philip Morant School and College in his honour.
Genealogical information retrieved from the papers of Thomas Astle (1735-1803), Keeper of the records. http://www.the-eastern-window.com/genealogy/morant.html