GILPIN, Bernard (1517-1583), rector of Houghton-le-Spring, distinguished by the unusual way in which he carried out his conception of the duties of a Christian pastor, was descended from a Westmoreland family, and was born at Kentmere in 1517. At Oxford he first adhered to the conservative side, and defended the doctrines of the church against Hooper; but his confidence was somewhat shaken by another public disputation which he had with Peter Martyr. In 1552 he preached before King Edward VI. a sermon on sacrilege, which was duly published, and displays the high ideal which even then he had formed of the clerical office; and about the same time he was presented to the vicarage of Norton, in the diocese of Durham, and obtained a licence, through William Cecil, as a general preacher throughout the kingdom as long as the king lived. Instead of settling down in England, however, he resigned his vicarage, and went abroad to pursue his theological investigations, and if possible satisfy his mind on some disputed matters. He carried out this intention at Louvain, Antwerp, and Paris; and from a letter of his own, dated Louvain, 1554, we get a glimpse of the quiet student rejoicing in an “excellent library belonging to a monastery of Minorites.” Returning to England towards the close of Queen Mary’s reign, he was invested by his uncle, Dr Tonstall, bishop of Durham, with the archdeaconry of Durham, to which the rectory of Effington was annexed. The freedom of his attacks on the vices, and especially the clerical vices, of his times excited hostility against him, and he was formally brought before the bishop on a charge consisting of thirteen articles. Tonstall, however, not only dismissed the case, but presented the offender with the rich living of Houghton-le-Spring; and ...when the accusation was again brought forward, he again protected him. Enraged at this defeat, Gilpin’s enemies laid their complaint before Dr Bonner, bishop of London, and he immediately gave orders for his apprehension. Upon this Gilpin prepared for martyrdom; and, having ordered his house-steward to provide him with a long garment, that he might “goe the more comely to the stake,” he set out for London. Providentially, however, he broke his leg on the journey, and his arrival was thus delayed till the news of Queen Diary’s death freed him from further danger. He at once returned to Houghton, and there he continued to labour till his death in 1583. When the Roman Catholic bishops were deprived, he was offered the see of Carlisle; but he declined the honour. At Houghton his course of life was a ceaseless round of benevolent activity. His hospitable manner of living was the admiration of all. In his household, he spent “every fortnight 40 bushels of corn, 20 bushels of malt, and an ox, besides a proportional quantity of other kinds of provisions.” Strangers and travellers found a ready reception; and even their horses were treated with so much care that it was humorously said that, if one were turned loose in any part of the country, it would immediately make its way to the rector of Houghton. Every Sunday from Michaelmas till Easter was a public day with Gilpin. For the reception of his parishioners he had three tables well covered,—one for gentlemen, the second for husbandmen, the third for dap labourers; and this piece of hospitality he never omitted, even when losses or scarcity made its continuance difficult. He built and endowed a grammar-school at a cost of upwards of <£500, educated and maintained a large number of poor children at his own charge, and provided the more promising pupils with means of studying at the universities. So many young people, indeed, flocked to his school that there was not accommodation for them in Houghton, and he had to fit up part of his house as a boarding establishment. Grieved at the ignorance and superstition which the remissness of the clergy permitted to flourish in the neighbouring parishes, he used every year to visit the most neglected parts of Northumberland, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland; and that his own flock might not suffer, he was at the expense of a constant assistant. Among his parishioners he was looked up to as a judge, and did great service in preventing law-suits amongst them. If au industrious man suffered a loss, he delighted to make it good; if the harvest was bad, he was liberal in the remission of tithes. And all this he was enabled to do because his frugality was as great as his generosity; for his rectory was worth no more than £400 a year. The boldness which he could display at need is well illustrated by his action in regard to duelling. Finding one day a challenge-glove stuck up on the door of a church where he was to preach, he took it down with his own hand, and proceeded to the pulpit to inveigh against the unchristian custom.
A life of Bernard Gilpin, written by George Carleton, bishop of Chichester, who had been a pupil of Gilpin’s at Houghton, will be found in Bates’s Vitae Selectorum aliquot Virorum, &c., London, 1681. A translation of this sketch by William Freake, minister, was published at London, 1629; and in 1852 it was reprinted in Glasgow, with an introductory essay by Edward Irving. It forms one of the lives in Christopher Wordsworth’s Ecclesiastical Biography (vol. iii., 4th edit.), having been compared with Carleton’s Latin text. Another biography of Gilpin, which, however, adds little to Bishop Carleton’s, was written by William Gilpin, Μ. A., prebendary of Ailsbury, London, 1753, and 1854.
GILPIN, William (1724-1804), author of several works on the scenery of Great Britain, was born at Carlisle in 1724. He was educated at Oxford university, and, after holding for some time a small curacy in the north of England, established a school for sons of gentlemen at Cheam in Surrey. Among his pupils were Viscount Sidmouth, Lord Bexley, and Mitford, the author of the History of Greece, the last of whom presented him, when he had resolved to retire from teaching, with the living of Boldre, near the New Forest, Hampshire. Gilpin died there, April 5, 1804. He is author of a Life of Bernard Gilpin, several miscellaneous religious publications, and lives of a number of the Reformers, but is chiefly known for his works on the scenery of various parts of England and Scotland, illustrated by tasteful engravings in aquatint executed by himself.
The principal of these works are—The River Wye and Southern Districts of Wales, 1782; The Lake Country, 1789; Observations on Picturesque Beauty made in the year 1776 in several parts of Great Britain, particτιldrly the Highlands of Scotland, 1778; two corresponding volumes on the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland; Forest Scenery, 1791; Three Essays on Picturesque Beauty, with a Poem on Landscape Painting, 1782; Essays on Prints and Early Engravings·, Western Parts of England and Isle of Wight, 1798; and The Coasts of Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent, published posthumously.
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