George Horne

George Horne (1 November 1730 – 17 January 1792) was an English churchman, academic, writer, and university administrator. Early years Horne was born at Otham near Maidstone, in Kent, the eldest surviving son of the Reverend Samuel Horne (1693-1768), rector of the parish, and his wife Anne (1697-1787), youngest daughter of Bowyer Hendley. He attended Maidstone Grammar School alongside his cousin and lifelong friend William Stevens, son of his father's sister Margaret, and from there went in 1746 to University College, Oxford (BA 1749; MA 1752; DD 1764). Three contemporaries at the college were also friends for life: Charles Jenkinson later first Earl of Liverpool, William Jones of Nayland. and John Moore, later Archbishop of Canterbury. His two younger brothers were also Oxford graduates and clergymen, Samuel Horne (1733 – about 1772) becoming an Oxford academic while William Horne (1740 – 1821) succeeded their father as rector of Otham. Academic career In 1749 Horne became a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, of which college he was elected President on 27 January 1768. As an influential college head, he served as vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1776 until 1780. At the university, he fought against any relaxation of the law that required entrants to subscribe to the beliefs of the Church of England. Ecclesiastical career Ordained priest in 1753, from 1760 to 1764 he was curate of the Oxfordshire village of Horspath. Thereafter his religious duties were performed at Magdalen until 1771, when the prime minister Lord North appointed him to the Royal Household as chaplain in ordinary to King George III, a position he held until 1781. In that year, he was appointed Dean of Canterbury, combining the post with the presidency of Magdalen. An energetic dean, he promoted Sunday schools to inform the young and delivered influential sermons against Unitarianism. He was also an active supporter of the Naval and Military Bible Society, now the Naval Military & Air Force Bible Society, founded in 1779 to supply Christian literature to the armed services and seafarers.