Education
He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford graduating Bachelor of Civil Law in 1761.
chaplain rector scientist churchman
He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford graduating Bachelor of Civil Law in 1761.
He was a patron of the artists Samuel Hieronymus Grimm, whom he commissioned for two decades to draw "everything curious", and Tilly Kettle. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1765 as an experimentalist in the field of electricity. He brought the young Reginald Spofforth as organist to Lincoln Cathedral.
In 1789 he was to inherit a baronetcy.
He left no children, and the baronetcy came to an end with him. Clerical Following graduation, in 1762 he was appointed Chaplain to the Duke of Portland.
Then in 1765 he became rector of Kirkby in Ashfield in 1765, a position he owed to the Dowager Duchess of Portland, and which he retained until his death. In this parish Dissenters and methodists following John Wesley made up the greatest part of the population, but Kaye was able to bring most of the population to return to worshiping at the parish church.
His notebook recording life in the parish is now in British Library.
After about 1770 Grimm was to portray life in the parish with pictures of harvest devotions and the village schoolchildren attending a church service. Only a year after moving to Kirby he was appointed in 1766, a Chaplain in Ordinary within the Royal Household and in 1768 he became a Sub-Almoner. His next move forward was in 1780 when he was appointed Archdeacon of Nottingham.
He had already been appointed Vicar of Clayworth.
In 1788 he became curate of Marylebone in 1788. He had a prebend as a residential canon at Lincoln from 1783 for life, at Durham, from 1777 to 1784 (leading Grimm to sketch in the north-east), and one at Southwell.
He held all these positions together with being Dean of Lincoln from 1783-1809 and he resided at the Deanery in Lincoln, which was drawn by Hieronymus Grimm.
Royal Society.