George Wheler (travel writer)

Sir George Wheler(20 January 1651[O.S. 10 January]– 15 January 1724[O.S. 4 January]) was an English clergyman and travel writer.

Portrait of Sir George Wheler, engraved by William Bromley

Portrait ofJacob Spon,Wheler's travelling companion in Greece and the Levant.

Life

The son of Charles Wheler ofCharing,Kent, colonel in theLife Guards,by his wife Anne, daughter of John Hutchin ofEgerton, Kent,he was born on 20 January 1651New Style dateatBredain theNetherlands,where his Royalist parents were in exile. He was educated at a school inWye, KentandLincoln College, Oxford,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 theMiddle Temple.

In October 1673 he set out for a tour in France, Switzerland, and Italy, and was at first accompanied byGeorge Hickes,his tutor at Lincoln College. While in Italy he received some instruction in antiquities fromJean-Foy Vaillant;and atVenice,in June 1675, metJacob Spon,with whom he travelled in Greece and the Levant in 1675 and 1676. Spon published a separate account of the journey in 1678Wheler's account,A Journey into Greece,was published in 1682. Among the places visited and described by Wheler wereZante,Delos,Constantinople,Prusa ad Olympum,Thyatira,Ephesus,Delphi,Corinth,andAttica.He brought home marbles and inscriptions from Athens, which he donated to theUniversity of Oxfordin 1683 and are now kept in theAshmolean Museum.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 aHypericum.The botanistsJohn Ray,Robert Morison,andLeonard Plukenetreceived rare plants from Wheler.

Wheler returned to England in November 1676. In 1677 he was elected aFellow of the Royal Society(but expelled in 1685) and was knighted on 1 September 1682.

About 1683 he took holy orders. In 1684 he received a canonry inDurham Cathedral,and from 1685 to 1702 was vicar ofBasingstoke,Hampshire.In 1706 he was promoted to the rectory ofWinston,and in 1709 to the rectory ofHoughton-le-Spring(where he founded and endowed a school for girls) both inCounty Durham.

He died at Durham, after a short illness, on 15 January 1724 New Style date,and was buried in thegalileeof 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[London], 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 inSpital 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 andWestminster,and estates in Hampshire and Kent. In 1692 he purchased the ancient archiepiscopal palace at Charing, Kent.

Family

Wheler married Grace, daughter ofSir Thomas HiggonsofGrewel,nearOdiham,Hampshire, and they had eighteen children. Their daughter Judith Wheler marriedThomas Sharpand was mother to the abolitionistGranville Sharp.Granville Whelerwas the third son.

References

• Royal Society,"Wheler; Sir; George (1650 - 1723)",Library and Archive catalogue,Royal Society, id: IM/004856,retrieved24 December2013

Attribution

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Wroth, Warwick William (1899), "Wheler, George",inLee, Sidney(ed.),Dictionary of National Biography,vol. 60, London: Smith, Elder & Co, pp. 445–446

Further reading

• Wilson, N. G. (January 2008) [2004], "Wheler, Sir George (1651–1724)",Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.), Oxford University Press,doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/29193(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)

External links

• Hutchinson, John (1892)."Sir George Wheler".Men of Kent and Kentishmen(Subscription ed.). Canterbury: Cross & Jackman. p. 141-142.