Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/96

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Tovey-Tennent
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Towers

archæology, and devoted much time to a history of the Jews in mediæval England. He freely utilised the numerous documents which Prynne had first published in his ‘Short Demurrer to the Jews' long-discontinued Remitter into England’ (1655), but he supplied additional information, and his treatise remains a standard contribution to an interesting byway of English history. The title runs: ‘Anglia Judaica; or the History and Antiquities of the Jews in England, collected from all our historians, both printed and manuscript, as also from the records in the Tower and other publick repositories,’ Oxford, 1738, 4to; it was dedicated to George Holmes [q. v.], deputy-keeper of the records in the Tower. A letter from Tovey to Rawlinson, dated 1744, ‘concerning a Roman brick found in Market Lane,’ was printed in ‘Archæologia’ (1770), i. 139.

[Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Rawlinson MSS. in Bodleian Library.]

S. L.


TOVEY-TENNENT, HAMILTON (1782–1866), soldier, born at Garrigheugh, Comrie, Perthshire, on 20 Aug. 1782, was the second son of John Tovey of Stirling, by his wife Hamilton, daughter of Sir James Dunbar of Mochrum and Woodside, third baronet, and judge-advocate of Scotland. He was educated at Stirling, and on 28 Dec. 1798 received the commission of lieutenant in the Bombay military service. In 1801 he was posted to the 24th regular native infantry at Goa, and was employed on active service against the Mahrattas. In 1805, while serving under Lord Lake at the siege of Bhurtpore, he was severely wounded in an assault on the town. On 17 Jan. 1811 he received the commission of captain. In 1813 he was placed in command of Ahmednuggar, and appointed brigade major at Poona. After more service against the Mahrattas, he was appointed in 1819 private secretary to Mountstuart Elphinstone [q. v.], governor of Bombay. He was promoted to the rank of major on 19 Jan. 1820, and accompanied Elphinstone on his tour through the province till November 1821, when he was compelled by the effect of his wounds to return to England. He retired from the service on 24 April 1824, being promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In 1832 he succeeded to the estates of his cousin, James Tennent of Pynnacles, Stanmore, Middlesex, and of Overton, Shropshire, and assumed his surname and arms. He died without issue, at Pynnacles, on 4 March 1866. In 1836 he married Helen, only daughter of General Samuel Graham, lieutenant-governor of Stirling Castle. Tovey-Tennent was a large contributor to charitable objects. Among other gifts he presented a site for a new church at Stanmore in 1854, and contributed 1,000l. to erect a school at Stirling. He was succeeded in his estates by his nephew, James Tovey-Tennent.

[Gent. Mag. 1866 i. 608, ii. 693; Burke's Landed Gentry, 1871; Dodwell and Miles's Indian Army List, Bombay Pres. p. 82; Colebrooke's Life of Mountstuart Elphinstone, 1884, ii. 11.]

E. I. C.


TOWERS, JOHN (d. 1649), bishop of Peterborough, was born in Norfolk. In 1598 he entered Queens' College, Cambridge, as a scholar, graduating B.A. in 1601-2 and M.A. in 1606. On 15 March 1607-8 he was elected a fellow, and on 9 July 1611 he was incorporated at Oxford. He graduated B.D. in 1615, and obtained that of D.D. per regias literas on 13 Dec. 1624. Previously he was appointed chaplain to William Compton, first earl of Northampton, and by him was presented to the rectory of Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire, on 11 April 1617. On 11 Oct. 1623 he was instituted rector of Yardley-Hastings in the same county, and on 4 July 1628, being then one of the king's chaplains, he was presented to the vicarage of Halifax in Yorkshire (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1628-9, pp. 190, 192). On 14 Nov. 1630 he was instituted dean of Peterborough, and on 3 April 1634 was installed a prebendary of Westminster. He was an ardent supporter of the royal prerogative, and on 11 Sept. 1637 wrote requesting that the collection of ship-money in Peterborough might be entrusted to him instead of to the sheriff (ib. 1637, p. 416). On 1 Oct. 1638 he was instituted rector of Castor in Northamptonshire, and on 8 March 1638-9 he was enthroned bishop of Peterborough, after numerous solicitations on his own behalf (ib. 1633-4 p. 338, 1638-9 pp. 79, 80, 87, 137, 149, 335, 405).

In his episcopal office Towers showed himself a staunch high-churchman, and zealously supported Laud in his changes in ritual. On 4 Aug. 1641 he was included in the list of thirteen bishops formally impeached by the House of Commons on account of their co- operation with Laud in enactment of illegal canons in convocation, in consequence of which they were prevented from voting while their cause was pending. On 28 Dec., in company with John Williams (1582–1650) [q. v.], archbishop of York, and ten other bishops, of whom nine were among those impeached, Towers signed the well-known protest declaring the actions of parliament in their absence null and void. On Pym's