Philip Freeman

Philip Freeman (1818–1875) was a Church of England cleric and Archdeacon of Exeter.

Life

Freeman, son of Edmund Freeman, of the Cedars, Combs, Suffolk, and Margaret, daughter of William Hughes of Wexford, Ireland, was born at the Cedars, Combs, Suffolk on 3 February 1818. He was educated at Dedham Grammar School under Dr George Taylor.

In October 1835, he became a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1837 and 1838 was awarded Sir William Browne's medals for a Latin ode and epigrams. He was elected Craven University scholar in 1838, graduated B.A. in 1839, and after being chosen fellow and tutor of Peterhouse, in 1842 took his M.A. degree.

He was principal of the Chichester Theological College from 1846 to 1848, and was a canon and a reader in theology in Cumbrae College (the college built by the Earl of Glasgow in the island of Great Cumbrae, Buteshire) from 1853 to 1858, at the same time having charge of the episcopal church in that island. He was presented by the dean and chapter of Exeter to the vicarage of Thorverton, Devonshire, in 1858, was appointed a prebendary of Exeter Cathedral in November 1861, and as one of the four residentiary canons in 1864, and acted for some time as examining chaplain to the bishop of the diocese. Finally, he was appointed archdeacon of Exeter in April 1865. He spent much time and money on the restoration work on the cathedral and on his own parish church at Thorverton. In 1869, at the meeting of the British Association in Exeter, he delivered a paper "On Man and the Animals, being a Counter Theory to Mr. Darwin's as to the Origin of Species". He was an authority on liturgical and architectural questions, and wrote numerous works on those subjects, and also contributed frequently to the Ecclesiologist, the Christian Remembrancer, and the Guardian.