Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Atkinson, Miles

612455Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 02 — Atkinson, Miles1885Thompson Cooper

ATKINSON, MILES (1741–1811), divine, second son of the Rev. Christopher Atkinson, rector of Thorp Arch, Yorkshire, was born at Ledsham 28 Sept. 1741, and educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge (B.A. 1763). He became curate of the parish church of Leeds; head-master of the school of Drighlington, near Leeds (1764–70); lecturer of the parish church of Leeds, 1769; vicar of Kippax, near Leeds, 1783; minister of St. Paul's Church, Leeds, 1793, which he founded at a cost of nearly 10,000l.; and died 6 Feb. 1811. He published several pulpit discourses, and a collection of his ‘Practical Sermons’ was published at London in two volumes, 1812. In Whitaker's ‘Loidis and Elmete’ there is a fine portrait of him, engraved by W. Holl from a painting by J. Russell, R.A.

[Memoir prefixed to his Practical Sermons; Whitaker's Loidis and Elmete, p. 69.]

T. C.