Henry Hart Milman

Henry Hart Milman (10 February 1791 – 24 September 1868) was an English historian and ecclesiastic.

Life

He was born in London, the third son of Sir Francis Milman, 1st Baronet, physician to King George III (see Milman Baronets). Educated at Eton and at Brasenose College, Oxford, his university career was brilliant. He won the Newdigate prize with a poem on the Apollo Belvidere in 1812, was elected a fellow of Brasenose in 1814, and in 1816 won the English essay prize with his Comparative Estimate of Sculpture and Painting. In 1816 he was ordained, and two years later became parish priest of St Mary's, Reading.

In 1821 Milman was elected professor of poetry at Oxford; and in 1827 he delivered the Bampton lectures on The character and conduct of the Apostles considered as an evidence of Christianity. In 1835, Sir Robert Peel made him the rector of St Margaret's, Westminster, and a canon of Westminster, and in 1849 he became Dean of St Paul's. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1864.

Milman was buried in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, where his grave was marked by an elaborate tomb. When the Chapel of the Order of the British Empire was created, the original tomb was replaced by a slab in the floor.

Family

By his wife, Mary Ann Cockell, a daughter of Lieut.-General William Cockell, Milman had four sons and two daughters. Among the sons were William Milman (1824–1908), Arthur Milman, who wrote a biography about his father, and Sir Archibald Milman (1834–1902), Clerk of the House of Commons. His nephew, Robert Milman (1816–1876), was Bishop of Calcutta from 1867 until his death, and was the author of a Life of Torquato Tasso (1850).