Thomas Barker (academic)

Thomas Barker (c. 1728 – 18 August 1785) was an English clergyman and Oxford academic.^[1]

Barker was born in Lancashire and matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford in 1745, at age 17. He graduated B.A. in 1749, M.A. in 1751, B.D. & D.D. in 1778.^[2]

Becoming a Fellow of Brasenose in 1750, Barker was a member of the Red Herring dining club, which had Jacobite associations and ceased meeting in 1761, at the end of its existence.^[3][4]

Barker was elected Principal of Brasenose on 14 September 1777. He died in Manchester on 18 August 1785, and was buried there.^[5] He was succeeded after his death by William Cleaver.^[6]

During Barker's time, Brasenose was the butt of satirical humour in Hannah Cowley's 1779 play Who's the Dupe?, for pedantry, provincial manners and unfashionable dress, in the character Gradus.^[7]

Notes

1. "The History and Antiquities of the Colleges and Halls in the University of Oxford":, Vol 3 p365 à Wood, A: Oxford; Clarendon; 1786
2. Foster, Joseph (1888–1892). "Barker, Thomas (2)" . Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715–1886. Oxford: Parker and Co – via Wikisource.
3. Oxford Historical Society (1909). Brasenose College quatercentenary monographs. Oxford : Printed for the Oxford Historical Society at the Clarendon Press. p. Monograph XIII, 29.
4. Sack, James J. (1993). From Jacobite to Conservative. Cambridge University Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-521-43266-5.
5. Foster, Joseph (1893). Oxford Men and Their Colleges . p. 347 – via Wikisource. [scan ]
6. Oxford Historical Society (1909). Brasenose College quatercentenary monographs. Oxford : Printed for the Oxford Historical Society at the Clarendon Press. p. Monograph XIII, 32.
7. Crook, Joseph Mordaunt (2008). Brasenose: The Biography of an Oxford College. Oxford University Press. p. 102. ISBN 9780199544868.

Academic offices
Preceded by Ralph Cawley	Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford 1777–1785	Succeeded by William Cleaver