CONYBEARE, John (1692-1755), a learned English divine, was born at Pinhoe, near Exeter, January 31, 1692. At the age of sixteen he entered Exeter College, Oxford, of wlich he was elected in 1710 probationary fellow. He graduated B.A. in 1713, and Μ.A. in 1716, and in the latter year was ordained priest. After holding a country curacy for about a year he returned to Oxford, and becanîe tutor in his college. Ere long he made himself favourably known by the publication of two well-reasoned sermons, on “Miracles,” and on the “Mysteries of the Christian Religion,” and was appointed one of the preachers to the king at Whitehall. He took his degree of D.D. in January 1729, and in 1730 he was chosen rector, of Exeter College. By this time he had increased his reputation by several additional sermons, and in 1732 he published his great work, A Defence of Revealed Religion. This was written in reply to Matthew Tindal’s Christianity as Old as the Creation, which had appeared two years before. It became very popular, and reached a third edition in 1733. It was characterized by Bishop Warburton as one of the best reasoned books in the world. Soon after its publication Conybeare was appointed dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and this post he held till 1750, when he succeeded Dr Butler in the see of Bristol. He died at Bath, July 13,1755. A selection of his sermons, in two volumes, was published after his death....
CONYBEARE, William Daniel (1787-1857), dean of Llandaff, an eminent geologist, born in London, June 7, 1787, was a grandson of Bishop Conybeare. He received his early education at Westminster School, and in 1805 went to Christ Church College, Oxford, where in 1808 he took his degree of B.A., as first-class in classics and second in mathematics, and that of Μ. A. three years later. Early attracted to the study of geology, he became one of the first members of the Geological Society, of which he was afterwards fellow, and to whose Transactions he contributed many important memoirs. His first paper was communicated in 1814. In his researches he was often associated with Buckland and Phillips. In 1821 he distinguished himself greatly by the first discovery and description of a skeleton of the plesiosaurus,—his account (partly conjectural reconstruction) being minutely confirmed by subsequent discoveries. Among his most important memoirs is that on the south-western coal district of England, written in conjunction with Dr Buckland, and published in 1824. His principal work, however, is the Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales, written in co-operation with W. Philips, and forming at the time of its appearance (1822) the best manual on the subject. Conybeare was a fellow of the Royal Society and a corresponding member of the Institute of France. He was appointed Bampton Lecturer in 1839, and was instituted to the deanery of Llandaff in 1845. The loss of his eldest son, W. J. Conybeare, joint author with Mr Howson of the Life and Letters of St Paul, preyed on his mind and hastened his end. He died at Itchenstoke, near Portsmouth, a few months after his son, August 12, 1857.
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