MEADOWCOURT, RICHARD (1695–1760), divine and writer, son of Richard Meadowcourt, esq., of Worcester, was born in 1695. He matriculated at Merton College, Oxford, on 9 March 1710, graduated B.A. in 1714, and proceeded M.A. in 1718, when he also became fellow. While in residence at Merton he is stated to have had a very elegant garden, the benches of which were adorned by Latin mottoes. Some specimens are given in Chambers's ‘Worcestershire Biography,’ p. 260. In 1727 he was presented to the vicarage of Oakley, Buckinghamshire; was instituted canon of Worcester on 15 Oct. 1734, and rector of St. Martin's parish in 1738, and in the latter year also became vicar of Quinton in Gloucestershire. From 1751 until his death he held the vicarage of Lindridge, Worcestershire.
On 1 May 1722 Meadowcourt preached in Merton College chapel a university sermon on ‘The Sinful Causes and Fatal Effects of the Practice of Calumny and Defamation in Religious Controversy.’ It was published in the same year, ‘at the request of several gentlemen,’ with a dedication to the Earl of Macclesfield, then lord chancellor. It had reference to the attacks of Bishop Sherlock and Dr. Snape on Bishop Hoadly, and was replied to in a pamphlet entitled ‘A Vindication of Dr. Snape and Dr. Sherlock against Mr. Meadowcourt's Attempt to Calumniate and Defame those Gentlemen. … By a Member of the Antient Society of Freemasons, with a Postscript relating to Dr. Sherlock's Complaint against the Sermon,’ 1722, 8vo. Meadowcourt is here described as ‘a sawcy young Preacher, a Fellow of a College, undignified and unpreferred.’ Ten other sermons, preached between 1721 and 1753, most of them in Worcester Cathedral, or at Oxford, were published (cf. Cooke, Preacher's Assistant, iii. 231). There are some lines by Meadowcourt on Hagley, addressed to Lord Lyttelton, in Nash's ‘Worcestershire,’ i. 490.
Meadowcourt, who is said to have been greatly esteemed by scholars, died at Worcester on 8 Sept. 1760. He was the author of ‘A Critique on Paradise Regained’ (1732, 4to) and ‘A Critical Dissertation, with Notes,’ on the same (1748), besides several small tracts containing critical remarks on the English poets. Meadowcourt, although a sympathetic and a learned critic, is deficient in insight. Newton embodied some of the notes to ‘Paradise Regained’ in his edition of Milton, in the preface to which he says that Meadowcourt ‘likewise transmitted to me a sheet of his manuscript remarks, wherein he hath happily explained a most difficult passage in “Lycidas” [viz. lines 160 and 162, ‘Bellerus’ and ‘Bayona's hold’] better than any man had done before him.’ In Coxe's ‘Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole’ (iii. 137) is a curious extract from a letter, dated 16 April 1733, from Meadowcourt to Delafaye, under-secretary of state, giving an account of the rejoicings at Oxford consequent on the rejection of Walpole's excise scheme.
[Foster's Alumni Oxonienses, 1500–1714; Le Neve's Fasti Eccles. Angl. iii. 87; Gent. Mag. 1760, p. 443; Letters by several Eminent Persons Deceased, ii. 246; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. xxi. 517, where the dates of Meadowcourt's birth and death are given wrongly.]
MEADOWE, JOHN (1622–1697), ejected minister. [See Meadows.]
MEADOWS. [See also Medows.]
MEADOWS, ALFRED (1833–1887), obstetric physician, born at Ipswich on 2 June 1833, was fourth child of Charles Meadows. A brother, Robert (1839–1887), obtained a distinguished position in China as a medical man. Alfred was educated at the grammar school, Ipswich, and later at King's College, London, of which he was first associate and afterwards fellow. He matriculated at the London University in 1853, and after serving as pupil to William Elliston of Ipswich, he entered, in October 1853, the King's College medical school, where he obtained many prizes. In 1856 he was admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and a licentiate of the Apothecaries' Hall. He also became a licentiate in midwifery of the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1857 he graduated M.B. of the university of London, and in the following year he became M.D., and in 1862 a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London; but it was not until 1873 that he was elected a fellow of that body. Immediately after obtaining his first qualifications to practice he held the offices of house-physician and resident midwifery assistant at King's College Hospital, and in 1857 he spent the winter in Paris.
Few men held a larger number of appointments than Meadows. The following are some of the more important. In 1860 he was assistant-physician for diseases of women
