Secker
THOMAS, Archbishop of Canterbury; born in Sibthorpe, Nottinghamshire, in 1693; son of a Dissenter of independent means, who wished him to enter the ministry of his own communion.
In 1716, however, the son turned to medicine, taking his doctorate in physic at Leyden in 1721. Meanwhile, urged by his old schoolfellow, Joseph Butler, he had decided to take Anglican orders; in 1722 SECOND he graduated B.A. at Oxford, and in that and the following year he was ordained deacon and priest. His preferments were Houghton-le-Spring (1724), Ryton and a prebend at Durham (1727), chaplain to the king (1732), St. James's, London (1733), Bishop of Bristol (1735), of Oxford (1737), Dean of St. Paul's, for which he resigned the living of St.
James's (1750), and the primacy (1758).
He died Aug. 3, 1768.