Background
He was born at Bradford on the 16th of February 1645. He was the eldest son of Thomas Sharp, a salter, and Dorothy Weddal.
He was born at Bradford on the 16th of February 1645. He was the eldest son of Thomas Sharp, a salter, and Dorothy Weddal.
He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge.
He was ordained deacon and priest on August 12th 1667, and until 1676 was chaplain and tutor in the family of Sir Heneage Finch at Kensington House. Meanwhile he became archdeacon of Berkshire (1673), prebendary of Norwich, rector of St Giles's-in-theFields, and in 1681 dean of Norwich. In 1686, when chaplain to James II. , he was suspended for ten months on a charge of having made some reflections on the king, and in 1688 was cited for refusing to read the declaration of indulgence. Under William and Mary he succeeded Tillotson as dean of Canterbury in 1689, and (after declining a choice of sees vacated by nonjurors who were his personal friends) followed Thomas Lamplugh as archbishop of York in 1691. He made a thorough investigation of the affairs of his see, and regulated the disordered chapter of Southwell. He preached at the coronation of Queen Anne and became her almoner and confidential adviser in matters of church and state. He welcomed the Armenian bishops who came to England in 1713, and corresponded with the Prussian court on the possibility of the Anglican liturgy as a means of reconciliation between Lutherans and Calvinists. He died at Bath on the 2nd of February 1714.
Sharp was married, by John Tillotson, at Clerkenwell in 1676 to Elizabeth Palmer of Winthorpe, Lincolnshire. Of his fourteen children, only four survived him. Of these, John Sharp (1678–1727) of Grafton Park represented Ripon in Parliament from 1701 to 1714; he was a commissioner of trade from 15 September 1713 to September 1714, and died on 9 March 1726–7; in Wicken church, Northamptonshire, there is a monument to him and his wife Anna Maria, daughter of Charles Hosier of Wicken Park. Thomas (1693–1758), the youngest son, was a churchman and the biographer of his father. The English surgeon William Sharp and his brother the abolitionist Granville Sharp were sons of Thomas. Sir Joshua Sharp, Sheriff of London in 1713, was the Archbishop's brother.
