Sir George Wheler (20 January 1651 – 15 January 1724 ) was an English clergyman and travel writer.

Life

The son of Charles Wheler of Charing, Kent, colonel in the Life Guards, by his wife Anne, daughter of John Hutchin of

Egerton, Kent Egerton is a village and civil parish in the Ashford District of Kent, England. The village is on the Greensand Ridge 9 miles (14.4 km) north of Ashford and stretches three miles south into a lower plain towards the West Stour. The paris ...

, he was born on 20 January 1651 New Style date at

Breda Breda () is a city and municipality in the southern part of the Netherlands, located in the province of North Brabant. The name derived from ''brede Aa'' ('wide Aa' or 'broad Aa') and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. Breda has ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Neth ...

, where his Royalist parents were in exile. He was educated at a school in

Wye, Kent Wye is a village in Kent, England, from Ashford and from Canterbury. It is the main settlement in the civil parish of Wye with Hinxhill. Hop varieties including Wye Challenger were bred at Wye College and named for the village. In 2013, ...

and

Lincoln College, Oxford Lincoln College (formally, The College of the Blessed Mary and All Saints, Lincoln) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, situated on Turl Street in central Oxford. Lincoln was founded in 1427 by Richard Fleming, the ...

, matriculating on 31 January 1667. He was created M.A. on 26 March 1683, and D.D. by diploma on 18 May 1702. In 1671 he became a student at the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn ...

. In October 1673 he set out for a tour in France, Switzerland, and Italy, and was at first accompanied by

George Hickes George Hickes may refer to: * George Hickes (divine) George Hickes (20 June 1642 O.S. – 15 December 1715 O.S.) was an English divine and scholar. Biography Hickes was born at Newsham, near Thirsk, Yorkshire, in 1642. After going to school ...

, his tutor at Lincoln College. While in Italy he received some instruction in antiquities from Jean-Foy Vaillant; and at

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

, in June 1675, met

Jacob Spon Jacob Spon (or Jacques; in English dictionaries given as James) (1647 in Lyon – 25 December 1685, in Vevey, Switzerland) was a French doctor and archaeologist, was a pioneer in the exploration of the monuments of Greece, and a scholar of intern ...

, with whom he travelled in Greece and the Levant in 1675 and 1676. Spon published a separate account of the journey in 1678 Wheler's account, ''A Journey into Greece'', was published in 1682. Among the places visited and described by Wheler were

Zante Zakynthos (also spelled Zakinthos; el, Ζάκυνθος, Zákynthos ; it, Zacinto ) or Zante (, , ; el, Τζάντε, Tzánte ; from the Venetian form) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the third largest of the Ionian Islands. Za ...

Delos The island of Delos (; el, Δήλος ; Attic: , Doric: ), near Mykonos, near the centre of the Cyclades archipelago, is one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. The excavations in the island ar ...

, Constantinople,

Prusa ad Olympum ( grc-gre, Προῦσα, Proûsa, Latin: Prusa, ota, بورسه, Arabic:بورصة) is a city in northwestern Turkey and the administrative center of Bursa Province. The fourth-most populous city in Turkey and second-most populous in the ...

Thyatira Thyateira (also Thyatira) ( grc, Θυάτειρα) was the name of an ancient Greek city in Asia Minor, now the modern Turkish city of Akhisar ("white castle"). The name is probably Lydian. It lies in the far west of Turkey, south of Istanbul ...

Ephesus Ephesus (; grc-gre, Ἔφεσος, Éphesos; tr, Efes; may ultimately derive from hit, 𒀀𒉺𒊭, Apaša) was a city in ancient Greece on the coast of Ionia, southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in ...

Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracl ...

, Corinth, and

Attica Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean Se ...

. He brought home marbles and inscriptions from Athens, which he donated to the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

in 1683 and are now kept in the

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University o ...

. He made considerable use of coins in his book, and paid attention to botany. He brought home plants that had not been cultivated in Britain, including a ''

Hypericum ''Hypericum'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Hypericaceae (formerly considered a subfamily of Clusiaceae). The genus has a nearly worldwide distribution, missing only from tropical lowlands, deserts and polar regions. Many ''Hy ...

''. The botanists

John Ray John Ray FRS (29 November 1627 – 17 January 1705) was a Christian English naturalist widely regarded as one of the earliest of the English parson-naturalists. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after ...

Robert Morison Robert Morison (162010 November 1683) was a Scottish botanist and taxonomist. A forerunner of John Ray, he elucidated and developed the first systematic classification of plants.Vines Biography Born in Aberdeen, Morison was an outstanding s ...

, and

Leonard Plukenet Leonard Plukenet (1641–1706) was an English botanist, Royal Professor of Botany and gardener to Queen Mary. Biography Plukenet published ''Phytographia'' (London, 1691–1696) in four parts in which he described and illustrated rare exotic p ...

received rare plants from Wheler. Wheler returned to England in November 1676. In 1677 he was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemati ...

(but expelled in 1685) and was knighted on 1 September 1682. About 1683 he took holy orders. In 1684 he received a canonry in

Durham Cathedral The Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Durham, commonly known as Durham Cathedral and home of the Shrine of St Cuthbert, is a cathedral in the city of Durham, England, Durham, County Durham (district), C ...

, and from 1685 to 1702 was vicar of

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is the largest town in the county of Hampshire. It is situated in south-central England and lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon, at the far western edge of The North Downs. It is located north-east of Southa ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire is ...

. In 1706 he was promoted to the rectory of Winston, and in 1709 to the rectory of

Houghton-le-Spring Houghton-le-Spring ( ) is a town in the City of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, North East England which has its recorded origins in Norman times. Historically in County Durham, it is now administered as part of the Tyne and Wear county. It is ...

(where he founded and endowed a school for girls) both in County Durham. He died at Durham, after a short illness, on 15 January 1724 New Style date,Robert W. Ramsey: ''Sir George Wheler and his Travels in Greece, 1650–1724.'' In: ''Essays by Divers Hands. Being the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature.'' New Series, Volume 29, 1942, p. 1–38, and Nigel Guy Wilson: ''Wheler, Sir George (1651–1724).'' In: ''

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

.'' Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004
Online
and was buried in the

galilee Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Galile ...

of Durham Cathedral.

Works

Wheler published: * ''A Journey into Greece'', London, 1682, with illustrations; French translation, Amsterdam, 1689. * ''Account of Churches and Places of Assembly of the Primitive Christians'', 1689. * ''The Protestant Monastery; or Christian Œconomicks, containing Directions for the Religious Conduct of a Family'' ondon 1698.

Legacy

Wheler bequeathed his Greek and Latin manuscripts to Lincoln College, and his dried plants, arranged in four volumes, to the University of Oxford, to which in 1683 he had presented marbles and antiquities brought from Greece. He left his coins (English, Greek, and Roman) to the Dean and chapter of Durham. By his will he secured a provision for the minister officiating at the chapel in Spital Fields, built in 1693, chiefly at his own expense. This building, formerly known as Wheler Chapel, was modernised in 1842, as St. Mary's, Spital Square. Wheler had considerable property in Spital Fields and

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Bucki ...

, and estates in Hampshire and Kent. In 1692 he purchased the ancient archiepiscopal palace at Charing, Kent.

Family

Wheler married Grace, daughter of Sir Thomas Higgons of Grewel, near

Odiham Odiham () is a large historic village and civil parish in the Hart district of Hampshire, England. It is twinned with Sourdeval in the Manche Department of France. The 2011 population was 4,406. The parish in 1851 had an area of 7,354 acres ...

, Hampshire, and they had eighteen children. Their daughter Judith Wheler married Thomas Sharp and was mother to the abolitionist

Granville Sharp Granville Sharp (10 November 1735 – 6 July 1813) was one of the first British campaigners for the abolition of the slave trade. He also involved himself in trying to correct other social injustices. Sharp formulated the plan to settle black ...

Granville Wheler Granville Wheler (August 1701 – 12 May 1770) was an English clergyman and scientist. Life He was third son of Sir George Wheler, born in August 1701, and was educated in Durham where his father was a canon at Durham Cathedral. He was admitted ...

was the third son.

Notes

References

* ;Attribution *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wheler, George 1651 births 1724 deaths 16th-century English writers 16th-century male writers 17th-century English Anglican priests English religious writers English travel writers British botanists Fellows of the Royal Society English expatriates in the Ottoman Empire Knights Bachelor Alumni of Wye College