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 ii. 595; ''Grad. Cantabr''. 1659–1823;, ''Hist. of Northumberland'', II. iii. 337).

His son Charles was educated at the royal grammar school, Newcastle, and at the cathedral school, Durham. He matriculated from University College, Oxford, on 10 Dec. 1799, graduating B.A. in 1803, M.A. in 1806, B.D. in 1822, and D.D. in 1835. In 1803 he was elected a fellow and tutor, and in 1807, on the resignation of his father, was presented by Shute Barrington [q. v.], bishop of Durham, to the rectory of Ryton. At that place he helped to establish the first savings bank in the north of England, and at Gateshead he delivered a sermon to the friendly society of that place which led to the establishment of the larger savings bank at Newcastle. The discourse, entitled ‘Economy a Duty of Natural and Revealed Religion,’ was published in 1818 (Newcastle, 8vo), and contains useful statistical information. In 1829 Thorp was presented to the second prebendal stall in the cathedral of Durham, and on 6 Dec. 1831 he was appointed archdeacon of Durham. Two years later, on the foundation of Durham University, he became the first warden. In this position he showed an indefatigable zeal, and made considerable pecuniary sacrifices in support of the university. Towards the close of his life disagreements concerning alterations in university arrangements led to his resignation. He died at Ryton rectory on 10 Oct. 1862.

Thorp was a man of singular disinterestedness and liberality, declining several valuable preferments on account of his attachment to his parish of Ryton. In 1807 he built at his own charge a church at Greenside in the western portion of his parish, in commemoration of his father. He was the author of many published sermons and charges, some of which enjoyed wide popularity. A portrait by J. R. Swinton was engraved by G. R. Ward, 1846.

Thorp was twice married. His first wife, Frances Wilkie, was only child of Henry Collingwood Selby of Swansfield. She died without issue on 20 April 1811; and on 7 Oct. 1817 he married Mary, daughter of Edmund Robinson of Thorp Green, Yorkshire, by whom he had a son Charles and seven daughters.

[Information kindly given by Mr. R. J. W. Davison; In Memoriam: a short Sketch of the Life of Charles Thorp, 1862; Gent. Mag. 1863, i. 115; Foster's Alumni Oxon.]

 THORPE, BENJAMIN (1782–1870), Anglo-Saxon scholar, was born in 1782, and having decided to study early English antiquities, then much neglected in Great Britain, set out about 1826 to Copenhagen. He was attracted thither chiefly by the fame of the great philologist, Rasmus Christian Rask, who had recently returned from the East and been appointed professor of literary history at the Danish University. In 1830 he brought out at Copenhagen an English version of Rask's ‘Anglo-Saxon Grammar’ (a second edition of this appeared at London in 1865), and in the same year he returned to England. In 1832 he published at London ‘Cædmon's Metrical Paraphrase of Parts of the Holy Scriptures in Anglo-Saxon; with an English Translation, Notes, and a Verbal Index.’ This was one of the best Anglo-Saxon texts yet issued, and it was highly commended by Milman and others (Latin Christianity, bk. iv. ch. iv.; cf. Gent. Mag. 1833 i. 329, 1834 ii. 484, 1855 i. 611). It was followed in 1834 by the ‘Anglo-Saxon Version of the Story of Apollonius of Tyre, upon which is founded the play of “Pericles,” from a MS., with a Translation and Glossary,’ and by an important text-book, which was promptly adopted by the Rawlinsonian professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford (Robert Meadows White [q. v.]), ‘Analecta Anglo-Saxonica: a selection in prose and verse from Anglo-Saxon authors of various ages, with a Glossary’ (Oxford, 1834, 8vo, 1846 and 1868). The ‘Analecta’ was praised with discrimination by the best authority of the day, John Mitchell Kemble [q. v.], and up to 1876, when Sweet's ‘Anglo-Saxon Reader’ appeared, though beginning to be antiquated, it remained, with Vernon's ‘Anglo-Saxon Guide,’ the chief book in use.

In 1835 appeared ‘Libri Psalmorum Versio antiqua Latina; cum Paraphrasi Anglo-Saxonica … nunc primum e cod. MS. in Bibl. Regia Parisiensi adservato’ (Oxford, 8vo), and then, after an interval of five years, Thorpe's well-known ‘Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, comprising the Laws enacted under the Anglo-Saxon Kings from Ethelbert to Canut, with an English Translation’ (London, 1840, fol., or 2 vols. 8vo), forming two volumes of ‘supreme value to the student of early English history’ (, Man. of Hist. Lit. p. 474; cf. Quarterly Rev. lxxiv. 281). Two more volumes were published by Thorpe in 1842, ‘The Holy Gospels in Anglo-Saxon’ (based upon ‘Cod. Bibl. Pub. Cant.’ li. 2, 11, collated with ‘Cod. C. C. C. Cambr.,’ s. 4, 140) and ‘Codex Exoniensis, a Collection of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, with English Translation and Notes’ (London, 8vo). Next came, for the Ælfric Society, ‘The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church,’ with an English version, published in ten parts between 1843 and 1846. In re-