Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Neve, Timothy (1694-1757)

886650Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 40 — Neve, Timothy (1694-1757)1894William Arthur Shaw

NEVE, TIMOTHY (1694–1757), divine and antiquary, was born at Wotton, in the parish of Stanton-Lacy, near Ludlow, Shropshire, in 1694. He was the son of Paul Neve, bailiff of the same place, and was educated at Ludlow school. He was admitted sizar of St. John's College, Cambridge, 10 Nov. 1711, under Goodwyn, and graduated B.A. in 1714. In 1716 he became master of the free grammar school at Spalding, Lincolnshire. He performed service in some capacity in Spalding parish church, and was in 1718 admitted a member of the Gentleman's Society of Spalding, of which he acted as librarian. To this society he communicated several papers, including, in 1727, essays on the invention of printing and our first printers, and on Bishop Kennett's donation of books to Peterborough Cathedral. Leaving Spalding about 1729, when a successor at the school was appointed, he moved to Peterborough, where he was minor canon from 24 March 1728–9 till 1745. While there he was secretary and joint founder, along with Joseph Sparke, the registrar of Peterborough, of the Gentleman's Society, founded on the lines of the Spalding society.

He was chaplain to Dr. Thomas, bishop of Lincoln, and by him nominated prebendary of Lincoln, first of the North Kelsey stall (1744–8), then of Nassington stall (1747–57). On 28 March 1747 he was also collated archdeacon of Huntingdon. For twenty-eight years (1729–57) he was rector of Alwalton, Huntingdonshire, a living attached to his Lincoln prebend. He died there on 3 Feb. 1757, and was buried in Alwalton Church, in the north transept of which is an epitaph to his memory.

By his first wife (married 1722, died 1728) he had four children, of whom two were surviving in 1741—a son, Timothy [q. v.], and a daughter, subsequently married to a Mr. Davies (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. vi. 136). His second wife, whom he married on 26 Feb. 1750, was Christina, daughter of the Rev. Mr. Greene of Drinkstone, Bury St. Edmunds, and sister to Lady Danvers of Rushbrooke, Suffolk.

Watt attributes to him ‘Observations of 2 Parhelia, or Mock Suns, seen 30 Dec. 1735, and of an Aurora Borealis seen 11 Dec. 1735, (Phil. Trans. Abridg. vii. 134, 1751); also on an ‘Aurora Borealis seen in 1741’ (ib. p. 526).

[Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Le Neve's Fasti; Luard's Grad. Cantab.; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vi. 63, 70, 99, et passim, and Literary Illustrations, v. 36; Gent. Mag. 1750, 1763, 1783, 1792, 1798; Blomfield's Deanery of Bicester; Thomas Birch's Athenian Letters; Prof. J. E. B. Mayor's Entries of St. John's College, Cambridge, January 1630–1–July 1715; information from Marten Perry, M.D., president of the Spalding Society, the Rev. T. A. Stoodley, Spalding, and William Ellis, esq., senior bursar of Merton College.]

W. A. S.