Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/396

 the march to Lucknow and of the city are now at the British Museum.

 MORANT, PHILIP (1700–1770), historian of Essex, born in St. Saviour's parish, Jersey, on 6 Oct. 1700, was second son of Steven Morant, by his wife Mary Filleul (, Armorial of Jersey, pt. v. pp. 294-5). After attending Abingdon school he matriculated at Oxford from Pembroke College as 'Mourant' on 17 Dec. 1717, and graduated B.A. in 1721 (, Alumni Oxon. 1715-1886, iii. 994). At midsummer 1722 he declined the office of preacher of the English church at Amsterdam. In 1724 he was licensed to the curacy of Great Waltham, Essex, and assisted the vicar, Nicholas Tindal [q. v.], in the preparation of a new edition of Rapin's 'History of England.' Tindal made some acknowledgment of Morant's help in the preface to the first volume. Morant also translated the notes to De Beausobre and Lenfant's 'Commentary on St. Matthew's Gospel,' the text of which had been translated by Tindal (1727). As a member of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, Morant proceeded M.A. in 1729. In 1724 he presented to Edmund Gibson, bishop of London, a manuscript 'Answer to the First Part of the Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion, in a Letter to a Friend.' The Bishop of London, impressed by Morant's argumentative power and antiquarian learning, conferred much patronage on him. On Gibson's recommendation he was, on 16 Aug. 1732, nominated by Queen Caroline to the chaplaincy of the English episcopal church at Amsterdam, which he retained until 29 Sept. 1734. He was presented to the rectory of Shellow Bowells on 20 April 1733, to the vicarage of Broomfield on 17 Jan. 1733-4, to the rectory of Chignal Smealey on 19 Sept. 1735, to that of St. Mary at the Walls, Colchester, on 9 March 1737, to that of Wickham Bishops on 21 Jan. 1742-3, and to that of Aldham on 14 Sept. 1745, all being in Essex. He held the Colchester and Aldham cures conjointly. At Colchester he did much towards rescuing Archbishop Harsnett's library from destruction, and prepared a catalogue. On 20 Nov. 1755 he was elected F.S.A. On the recommendation of his son-in-law, Thomas Astle [q. v.], Morant was entrusted by a committee of the House of Lords with the preparation for the press of the ancient records of parliament. His knowledge of Norman French and skill as a palæographer qualified him for the work. He was responsible for the text and notes of the edition of the 'Rotuli Parliamentorum' during the period 1278-1413. He died at South Lambeth on 25 Nov. 1770, and was buried in Aldham Church. The east window of the chancel of the new church at Aldham was filled with stained glass by subscription in 1854, 'In memoriam Phil. Morant, A.M.' By Anne, daughter and coheiress of Solomon Stebbing of the Brook House, Great Tey, Essex, he had an only daughter, Anna Maria, who was married, on 18 Dec. 1765, to Thomas Astle, keeper of the records in the Tower of London (Transactions of Essex Archæolog. Soc. iv. 43-4). His library of books and manuscripts came into the possession of Astle. Many of the books are now in the Royal Institution; the manuscripts (excepting the Holman volumes, which were presented to the corporation of Colchester by Robert Hills of Colne Park, Essex) form part of the Stowe collection in the British Museum.

In 1748 Morant published his 'History and Antiquities of Colchester,' fol. (2nd edit. 1768), of which only two hundred copies were printed, at the joint expense of William Bowyer [q. v.] and himself. It is painstaking and accurate, but was burlesqued as diffuse by John Clubbe [q.v.] in 'The History and Antiquities of the ancient Village of Wheatfield' (1758). His great work, 'The History and the Antiquities of the County of Essex,' 2 vols. fol. 1760-8, with which the 'History of Colchester 'was incorporated, is based chiefly on the collections of Thomas Jekyll [q. v.] and William Holman [q. v.] On Holman's death in 1730 his manuscript history was placed in the hands of Nicholas Tindal, but he abandoned the project of editing it after two numbers had appeared. In 1739 Dr. Nathaniel Salmon purchased the manuscript with a view to publication. He, however, died in 1742, and the manuscript passed eventually into the hands of John Booth, F.S A., of Barnard's Inn, under-sheriff of Essex, from whom it was acquired about 1750 by Morant (cf., Anecd. of Brit. Topography, i. 370). As an editor Morant was more competent than either of his predecessors. As a manorial history his work is most useful, but the genealogies are often defective and inaccurate : no monumental inscriptions or extracts from parish registers are given, while the lists of incumbents mostly commence with the eighteenth century only. A comparison of the history

