Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/100

 EWER, JOHN (d. 1774), bishop of Bangor, was educated at Eton, whence he proceeded in 1723 to King's College, Cambridge, of which he become fellow. He took the degrees of B.A. 1728, M.A. 1733, and D.D. 1756. On leaving college he was appointed assistant-master at Eton. He afterwards become tutor to the Marquis of Granby, accompanied him on his travels, and in 1735 was presented by the marquis to the richly endowed rectory of Bottesford, Leicestershire. On 1 March 1737-8 he was appointed by patent to a canonry of Windsor (, Fasti, ed. Hardy, iii. 408), with which he subsequently held the rectory of West Ilsley, Berkshire, In 1749 he became rector of Dengie, Essex, and on 4 Nov. 1751 was instituted prebendary of Moreton cum Whaddon in the cathedral of Hereford (ib. i. 614). He was raised to the see of Llandaff 13 Sept. 1761 (ib. ii. 256), and translated to Bangor 20 Dec. 1768 (ib. i. 109). He died 28 Oct. 1774 at his seat near Worcester (Gent. Mag. xliv. 542), having married, 14 Sept. 1743, Elizabeth, daughter and coheiress of Thomas Barnardiston of Wyverstone, Suffolk, who survived him (ib. xiii.498). He left a daughter, Margaret Frances Ewer (will registered in P. C. C. 419, Bargrave), His library was sold in 1776 (, Lit. Anecd. iii. 658). Ewer took occasion, in a sermon preached before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 20 Feb. 1767, to reproach the American colonists because they failed to see any use for bishops or episcopally ordained ministers. He then proceeded to brand them as 'infidels and barbarians,. . . living without remembrance or knowledge of God, without any divine worship, in dissolute wickedness, and the most brutal profligacy of manners,' adding the extraordinary statement, 'That this their neglect of religion was contrary to the pretences and conditions under which they obtained royal grants and public authority to their adventures, such pretences and conditions being the enlargement of commerce and the propagation of christian faith. The former they executed with sincerity and zeal, and in the latter most notoriously failed.' These silly slanders were easily disposed of by Charles Chauncy of Boston, in 'A Letter to a Friend,' dated 10 Dec. 1767, and in a spirited 'Letter' to the bishop himself, by William Livingston, governor of New Jersey, in 1768. Ewer also published: 1. 'A Fast Sermon before the House of Lords,' 1702. 2. 'A Sermon before the President and Governors of the London Hospital,' 1706.

[Harwood's Alumni Eton. p. 314; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. viii. 465; Page's Suppl. To Suffolk Traveller, p. 504; Gent. Mag. lxii. pt. ii. 746.]  EWIN, WILLIAM HOWELL (1731?–1804), usurer, born in or about 1731, was the son of Thomas Ewin, formerly a grocer, and latterly a brewer in partnership with one Sparks of St. Sepulchre's, Cambridge, by a daughter of a coal merchant named Howell of St. Clement's in the same town (Addit. MS. 5804, ff. 69 b, 70 b). He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, as a member of which he took the degrees of B.A. 1753, M.A. 1756, and LL.D. 11 June 1766. He is said to have received a diploma of LL.D. from Edinburgh in or about 1778, but his name does not occur in the ‘Catalogue of Graduates,’ 1858. At the death of his father he inherited his share of the brewing business and a handsome fortune, which he largely increased by private usury. He was placed on the commission of the peace for the town and county of Cambridge. In 1769 he joined his old college tutor, Dr. William Samuel Powell, in opposing the act for better paving, lighting, and watching the town, by which the design was hindered for a time (, Lit. Anecd. i. 583). ‘My friend, Dr. Ewin,’ writes William Cole, ‘by being much of his father's turn, busy and meddling in other people's concerns, got the ill will of most persons in the town and university. … The gownsmen bore him a particular grudge for interfering much in their affairs. … They often broke the doctor's windows, as they said he had been caught listening on their staircases and doors. … Dr. Ewin, as did his father, squinted very much,’ hence his nickname of ‘Dr. Squintum’ (Addit. MS. 5804, f. 68 b). In January 1777 a report was current at Cambridge that he had been detected in lending money at an enormous interest in 1775 and 1776 to a scholar of Trinity College named William Bird, then a minor, and without a father, whom he had also caused to be imprisoned in a sponging-house. The sum advanced was 750l., for which he took notes to the amount of 1,090l. This ‘usurious affair,’ as Cole terms it, came to light at a very unlucky time, for he had been promised the chancellorship of the diocese of Ely, which fell vacant in the following May. Eighteen months, however, were allowed to elapse before the university took action. The trial came on in the vice-chancellor's court 14 Oct. 1778, when Ewin made but a sorry defence. On 21 Oct. he was sentenced to be suspended from all degrees taken, or to be taken, and expelled the university. The delegates on his appeal confirmed the suspension, but revoked the expulsion. He thereupon applied to the court of king's bench for a mandamus to restore him to his degrees. The court after full argument awarded the writ in June 1779,