John Talbot

Background

He was born in Wymondham, Norfolk, England, in 1645, the son of Thomas Talbot and Jane, daughter of Sir John Mede of Lofts, Essex.

Education

He was admitted sizar at Christ's College, Cambridge, graduated B. A. in 1663/4 and M. A. in 1671.

Career

Talbot was rector of a church in Icklingham, Suffolk, 1673-89; he seems to have visited Virginia about 1693; and from 1695 to 1701 he was rector of the church at Fretherne, Gloucestershire.

On April 28, 1702, he sailed from Cowes for the port of Boston as chaplain of the Centurion. With him were George Keith and Patrick Gordon, the first missionaries sent to the colonies by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. In Boston he preached a sermon at Queen's Chapel, June 28, and soon afterward was chosen by Keith as assistant in his missionary travels. On September 18, 1702, he was appointed a missionary of the Society.

Setting off with Keith on an intercolonial journey for the purpose of consolidating the Church of England forces on the northeastern seaboard, he preached at Philadelphia to assemblies so large that no church could be found to hold them, and had similar successes in New York and New Jersey. "We find, " he wrote, "a great ripeness and inclination amongst all sorts of people to embrace the Gospel".

With him he carried a "wallet full" of books explanatory of the doctrine and liturgy of the Church of England. He soon became convinced that America needed a bishop, "to visit all the churches, to ordain some, to confirm others, and bless all" , and thenceforward was untiring in his effort to secure an ecclesiastic qualified to perform these functions.

There was strong objection in the Colonies to the project of an episcopate, however, as much political as ecclesiastical, and Talbot's continued efforts to set up the mitre were opposed on every side. In 1704, upon the petition of the churchmen of Burlington in the Jerseys, he became rector of the newly built St. Mary's Church there, but in the same year when certain members of the clergy began to agitate for a suffragan bishop, he went to England to plead the cause before the Society, and again took up his residence in Fretherne until 1708, when he returned to America.

Four years later the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel empowered Gov. Robert Hunter to prepare a residence for Talbot in Burlington, and an established bishopric loomed as a certainty. With the accession of George I, however, the old Jacobite-Hanoverian quarrels were reopened, and Talbot, asked to renew the oath of allegiance, refused. Governor Hunter immediately charged him with incorporating the Jacobites in the Jerseys, refused to grant him residence, and in 1716 accused him of omitting certain prayers from the liturgy. In 1720-23 Talbot visited England, where he presented another petition to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. He was now granted the interest from the legacy left by Archbishop Tenison for the support of a bishop in America or, until the appointment of such a bishop, the support of a deserving missionary. The tradition that while in England Talbot received episcopal consecration clandestinely at the hands of a nonjuror, rests upon very questionable evidence.

Returning to America in 1723, he reopened negotiations with Governor Hunter, and the two became reconciled. The following year, presiding at a convocation of clergy who upheld the action of the vestry of Christ Church, Philadelphia, in dismissing the Rev. John Urmiston, and later supplying the vacant pulpit himself, Talbot gained an enemy in Urmiston, who made complaint, insinuating that Talbot had assumed the role of bishop, and recalled the old accusation of Jacobite sympathies. Urmiston's charges were reported to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and in October 1724 Talbot was removed for disaffection toward the government. In July 1725 he wrote the Society that he had learned indirectly that he had been dismissed for "exercising acts of jurisdiction" over his fellow missionaries, which charge he emphatically denied. He was not reinstated, however, although shortly afterward the visiting commissary of the Bishop of London wrote to England in his behalf, characterizing him as "a man universally beloved, even by the dissenters".

He died at the age of eighty-two and was buried in St. Mary's Church, Burlington.

Achievements

• He was one of the original missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts who wielded considerable influence in colonial America.

Works

• book

  • Apostle of New Jersey; John Talbot 1645-1727

    (One of the original missionaries of the Society for the P...)

Connections

He was a fellow of Peterhouse from 1664 to 1668 when he admitted marriage and forfeited his fellowship. His wife was a daughter of Sir Arthur Jenney of Knotshall, Suffolk.

Later he married Mrs. Anne Herbert, who survived him.

Father:

Thomas Talbot

Mother:

Jane Talbot

Spouse:

Mrs. Anne Herbert