Samuel Butler (schoolmaster)

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Samuel Butler, FRS (30 January 1774 - 4 December 1839), was an English classical scholar and schoolmaster at Shrewsbury, and Bishop of Lichfield. His grandson was Samuel Butler, noted author.

He was born at Kenilworth. He was educated at Rugby School, and in 1792 went to St John's College, Cambridge. Butler's classical career was a brilliant one. He obtained three of Sir William Browne's medals, for the Latin (1792) and Greek (1793, 1794) odes, the medal for the Greek ode in 1792 being won by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In 1793 Butler was elected to the Craven scholarship, amongst the competitors being John Keate, afterwards headmaster of Eton, and Coleridge. In 1796 he was fourth senior optime and senior chancellors classical medallist. In 1797 and 1798 he obtained the members prize for Latin essay. He took the degree of BA in 1796, MA 1799, and DD 1811. In 1797 he was elected a fellow of St John's, and in 1798 became headmaster of Shrewsbury school.

In 1802 he was presented to the living of Kenilworth, in 1807 to a prebendal stall in Lichfield Cathedral, and in 1822 to the archdeaconry of Derby; all these appointments he held with his headmastership, but in 1836 he was promoted to the bishopric of Lichfield (and Coventry, which was separated from his diocese in the same year).

It is in connection with Shrewsbury school that Butler will be chiefly remembered. During his headmastership its reputation greatly increased, and in the standard of its scholarship it stood as high as any other public school in England. His edition of Aeschylus, with the text and notes of Stanley, appeared 1809-1816, and was somewhat severely criticized in the Edinburgh Review, but Butler was prevented by his elevation to the episcopate from revising it. He also wrote a Sketch of Modern and Ancient Geography (1813, frequently reprinted) for use in schools, and brought out atlases of ancient and modern geography. His large library included a fine collection of Aldine editions and Greek and Latin manuscripts; the Aldines were sold by auction, the manuscripts purchased by the British Museum. Bishop Butler is buried in the church yard of the Collegiate Church of St Mary the Virgin Shrewsbury - the former parish church of Shrewsbury School.

Butler's life has been written by his grandson Samuel Butler, author of Erewhon (Life and Letters of Dr Samuel Butler, 1896); see also Baker's History of St John's College, Cambridge (ed. JEB Mayor, 1869); Sandys, Hist. Class. Schol. (ed. 1908), vol. iii. p. 398.