Background
The son of Richard Hey of Pudsey and his wife Mary Simpson, and elder brother of William Hey and Richard Hey, he was born in July 1734.
The son of Richard Hey of Pudsey and his wife Mary Simpson, and elder brother of William Hey and Richard Hey, he was born in July 1734.
His lectures on morality were admired, and were attended by William Pitt the younger.
He entered Catharine Hall, Cambridge in 1751, graduating Bachelor of Arts in 1755 and Master of Arts in 1758. He became a fellow of Sidney Sussex College in 1758, and was tutor from 1760 to 1779. He took his Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1765, and his Doctor of Divinity in 1780.
In 1779 Charles Maynard, 1st Viscount Maynard presented Hey to the rectory of Passenham, in southern Northamptonshire, and he later obtained the adjacent rectory of Calverton, Buckinghamshire.
He was elected in 1780 to the Norrisian professorship of divinity, of which he was the first holder. He was re-elected in 1785 and in 1790.
According to the regulations then in force, he might have been elected for another term if he had resigned in 1794, before reaching the age of 60, but declined to do southern He held his livings until 1814, when he resigned them and moved to London.
Hey died 17 March 1815, and was buried in Street John"s Chapel, Street John"s Wood.