Attributed James Ward, Ra, 1769-1859 Portrait of Archbishop of York , William Markham 1719 – 1807

Attributed James Ward, RA, 1769-1859

Portrait of Archbishop of York , William Markham 1719 – 1807

oil on canvas

30 x 25in. (76 x 63.5cm.)

Markham, William (bap. 1719, d. 1807), archbishop of York, was baptized at Kinsale, in the county of Cork, on 9 April 1719, the eldest of the four children of Major William Markham (d. 1771) and his wife, Elizabeth (1686–1772), a distant cousin and the daughter of George Markham of Worksop Lodge, Nottinghamshire. His father was an army officer of literary tastes who ran a school to supplement his half pay. The family claimed descent from the Markhams of Cotham.

After early education at home from his father Markham was admitted to Westminster School as a home boarder on 21 June 1733; there his academic talents were complemented by skills as an oarsman and a boxer. In 1738 he obtained a studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, and matriculated on 6 June 1738. He took the degrees of BA (13 May 1742), MA (28 March 1745), BCL (20 November 1752), and DCL (24 November 1752). He held the college lectureship in rhetoric from 1747 to 1750 and was appointed junior censor the following year. Markham's literary talents and wide-ranging classical scholarship flowered during these years at the house. His ‘Judicium paridis’, a Latin verse version of Shakespeare's ‘Seven Ages of Man’, was published in volume 2 of Vincent Bourne's Musae Anglicanae in 1741, while other specimens of his Latin verse appeared in the second volume of Carmina quadragesimalia (1748).

After ordination and continental travel Markham followed his father's example and took up teaching. In 1753 the headship of Westminster School fell vacant on the retirement of Dr John Nicholl, and Markham's familiarity with the school and his high academic standing secured him the post. There he remained for the next eleven years, taking what the Public Advertiser in 1755 called ‘the first Seminary of School Learning in Europe’ through its two hundredth anniversary in 1760. Markham established a reputation as one of the most formidable headmasters of the eighteenth century, though more for his managerial than for his pedagogical skills. Teaching was never Markham's first priority but he had an undeniable presence in the classroom. One of his pupils, Jeremy Bentham (Westminster, 1755–60, and himself the son of a Christ Church canon), famously described Markham in the form room as ‘an object of adoration’ (Works of Jeremy Bentham, 10.30). Many other members of the later Georgian élite received their schooling at his hands. Without personal wealth or high birth Markham sedulously but never fawningly cultivated the powerful throughout his life. He watched over the interests of former pupils, while many of them tended his.

Markham meanwhile accumulated church preferments, thanks to the friendly interest extended by that old Westminster, the duke of Newcastle. He was appointed chaplain to George II in 1756, and Bishop Richard Trevor nominated him to the second prebendal stall in Durham Cathedral on 22 June 1759 (installed 20 July). There were murmurings that the headmaster was putting personal interests before those of the school, and indeed by 1763 Markham was angling for a crown appointment. He eventually resigned the headmastership (pleading ill health) on 8 March 1764 but only received a fresh post towards the end of the Grenville ministry when the Rochester deanery fell vacant. Markham was instituted as dean on 20 February 1765 and in the same year was presented by the chapter to the vicarage of Boxley, Kent. His stay at Rochester was brief. The death of David Gregory in September 1767 offered an opening for Markham to return to Christ Church, and he exchanged one deanery for another the following month with the blessing of both Newcastle and Archbishop Secker. Thus began a decade in academic office which saw Markham at his most creative