Jonathan Boucher
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Rev. Jonathan Boucher (pronounced Boo-Shay),
FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...
, FSA (12 March 1738 – 27 April 1804) was an English clergyman, teacher, preacher and
philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
.


Early career

Jonathan Boucher was born in
Blencogo Blencogo is a small farming village and former civil parish near Wigton in Cumbria, England. It is situated on the Solway Plain in the Allerdale Borough Council area, off the B3502 Wigton to Silloth road. The village is a centre for growing ...
, near
Wigton Wigton is a market town in the Allerdale borough of Cumbria, England. Historically in Cumberland, it lies just outside the Lake District in the borough of Allerdale. Wigton is at the centre of the Solway Plain, between the Caldbeck Fells an ...
,
Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 19 ...
, and educated at the Wigton Grammar School. After training in
Workington Workington is a coastal town and civil parish at the mouth of the River Derwent on the west coast in the Allerdale borough of Cumbria, England. The town was historically in Cumberland. At the 2011 census it had a population of 25,207. Loca ...
, Jonathan became a teacher, at St. Bees School and in 1759 went to
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
, where he became a private tutor in the families of Virginia planters. Invited to become vicar of a nearby Anglican church, but lacking any religious qualifications, he briefly returned to England, to be ordained by the
bishop of London A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
in March 1762. He also carried a cane around the colony. He landed in America again on 12 July, was associated with the
Anglican Church Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...
, and remained until 1775 as rector of various Virginia and Maryland parishes, including St. Mary's,
Caroline County, Virginia Caroline County is a United States county located in the eastern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The northern boundary of the county borders on the Rappahannock River, notably at the historic town of Port Royal. The Caroline county sea ...
, Hanover,
King George County, Virginia King George County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population sits at 26,723. Its county seat is the town of King George. The county's largest employer is the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center ...
, and St Anne's in
Annapolis, Maryland Annapolis ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Maryland and the county seat of, and only incorporated city in, Anne Arundel County. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east o ...
and in 1771,
St. Barnabas Church, Upper Marlboro, Maryland St. Barnabas Church, also known as St. Barnabas' Episcopal Church, Leeland, was built in Leeland, Maryland, and was established in 1704 as the parish church of Queen Anne Parish which had been established that same year. Because of its location i ...
. He also kept a school, and among his charges, from 1768, was
John Parke Custis John Parke Custis (November 27, 1754 – November 5, 1781) was an American planter. He was a son of Martha Washington and stepson of George Washington. Childhood A son of Daniel Parke Custis, a wealthy planter with nearly three hundred enslave ...
, the stepson of
George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
with whom he began a close friendship. Earlier, on Whitsun Monday, 1766, he baptised 350 Black adults at his Caroline County parish, and preached to about 3,000 for about an hour.


Hostility in Maryland

He was widely known as an eloquent preacher, and his scholarly attainments won for him the friendship and esteem of some of the ablest scholars in the colonies. He was also an ardent
Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. Th ...
, believing firmly that protest against Government wrongs should be carried out within the law– but definitely not an uncritical supporter of British policy; for example, he considered the 1765 Stamp Act to be "oppressive, impolitic and illegal", and the
Royal proclamation A proclamation (Lat. ''proclamare'', to make public by announcement) is an official declaration issued by a person of authority to make certain announcements known. Proclamations are currently used within the governing framework of some nations ...
against the
Westward Expansion The United States of America was created on July 4, 1776, with the U.S. Declaration of Independence of thirteen British colonies in North America. In the Lee Resolution two days prior, the colonies resolved that they were free and independe ...
of the thirteen colonies "unjust and impolitic". During his residence in Maryland he vigorously opposed the vestry act, by which the powers and emoluments of the Maryland pastors were greatly diminished. When the struggle between the colonies and the mother country began, although he felt much sympathy for the former, his opposition to any form of illegal obstruction to the Stamp Act and other measures, and his denunciation of a resort to force, created a breach between him and his parish, and for months, he preached with a pair of loaded pistols beside him. In a fiery farewell sermon at St. Barnabas in 1775, to a hostile crowd of 200 men, he preached after the opening of hostilities he stated:
I will continue to pray for the King; and all who are in authority under him ... As long as I live ... will I ... proclaim: God save the King old addedref name=av/>
At the conclusion and with
pistol A pistol is a handgun, more specifically one with the chamber integral to its gun barrel, though in common usage the two terms are often used interchangeably. The English word was introduced in , when early handguns were produced in Europe, an ...
in hand, he seized the leader of the crowd, Osborn Sprigg of Northampton, Maryland, and together they walked to Boucher's horse. Both men were allowed to leave without harm.


Return to England

With George Washington forced to make a hard choice between protecting his argumentative friend and showing loyalty to the colonists' cause, in the autumn of 1775 Boucher returned to England with his wife, Eleanor Addison of
Oxon Hill, Maryland Oxon Hill is an unincorporated area and census-designated place (CDP) in southern Prince George's County, Maryland, Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. Oxon Hill is a suburb of Washington, D.C., Washington, located southeast of the dow ...
, where his
loyalism Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British C ...
was rewarded by a government pension. In 1784 he became vicar of
Epsom Epsom is the principal town of the Borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey, England, about south of central London. The town is first recorded as ''Ebesham'' in the 10th century and its name probably derives from that of a Saxon landowner. The ...
in Surrey, where he continued until his death on 27 April 1804, becoming known as one of the most eloquent preachers of his day. In 1804, shortly before his death, he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...
but his link to Edinburgh is unclear.


Works

Boucher was an accomplished writer and scholar, contributed largely to William Hutchinson's ''History of the County of Cumberland'' (2 vols., 1794 seq.), and published ''A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution'' (1797), dedicated to General George Washington, and consisting of thirteen discourses delivered in America between 1763 and 1775;
Peter Laslett Thomas Peter Ruffell Laslett (18 December 1915 – 8 November 2001) was an English historian. Biography Laslett was the son of a Baptist minister and was born in Bedford on 18 December 1915. Although he spent much of his childhood in Oxford, ...
called Boucher "the arch-conservative of the American Revolution" and the work "pure Filmerism, the ablest exposition of the 'patriarchal system' that had ever been made." His philological studies, to which the last fourteen years of his life were devoted, resulted in the compilation of ''A Glossary of Provincial and Archaic Words'', intended as a supplement to
Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709  – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
's ''Dictionary'', but never published except in part, which finally in 1831 passed into the hands of the English compilers of
Webster's Dictionary ''Webster's Dictionary'' is any of the English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758–1843), as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's n ...
, by whom it was used. His "Reminiscences of an American Loyalist" were also belatedly published, first in serial form in "Notes and Queries" in the 1870s.


Family

He married three times, first in America in 1772 to Eleanor Addison, of which little is known, other than that his wife did not appear to return to Britain with him; they had a daughter named Eleanor Boucher. His second marriage occurred in England in 1787 to Mary Elizabeth Foreman, who died the following year. His last marriage in 1789 was to Elizabeth James (née Hodgson), a widow to Dr. John James. James and Boucher had seven children together, including Barton Boucher. His son, Barton Boucher (1794–1864), rector of
Fonthill Bishop Fonthill Bishop is a small village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, to the north of the Nadder valley and south of Warminster. The Fonthill Park estate extends into the south of the parish. Landscaping which included the creation of Fo ...
, Wiltshire in 1856, was well known as the author of religious tracts, hymns and novels, whilst his daughter Eleanor married
Edward Hawke Locker Edward Hawke Locker (9 October 1777, in East Malling, Kent – 16 October 1849, in Iver, Buckinghamshire) was an English watercolourist (producing works now in the V&A and British Museum) and administrator of the Royal Naval Hospital, Greenwi ...
, Civil Commissioner of the Greenwich Hospital.


References


Other sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Boucher, Jonathan 1738 births 1804 deaths People from Wigton American colonial clergy American colonial writers American Loyalists from Maryland Loyalists in the American Revolution from Virginia British North American Anglicans Burials in Surrey Clergy in the American Revolution English philologists British emigrants to the Thirteen Colonies People of colonial Maryland Virginia colonial people 18th-century American Episcopalians 18th-century English Anglican priests 18th-century British writers 18th-century American writers 19th-century American Episcopalians