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Reverend Peter Cunningham was probably born in 1747 and died in Chertsey on 24 June 1805.〔He refers to himself as ‘a young clergyman of eight-and-twenty’ in (a letter to Thomas Seward dated 1775 ); the date of his death is recorded on a tablet in Chertsey church: E.W.Brayley, ''A topographical history of Surrey'', “Monuments at Chertsey” (p.200 )〕 For most of his life he acted as a curate and published several poems of a political tendency. ==Life== Accounts of Peter Cunningham's life have mostly been gleaned from the writings and correspondence of the Seward family, covering his period as curate at Eyam in 1775-90, and principally from four letters of his that have been preserved from that period. In addition, two accounts of him are given in 19th century works dealing with Eyam, Ebenezer Rhodes' ''Peak Scenery'' and William Wood's ''The History and Antiquities of Eyam''. The account of him given in a past edition of the ''Dictionary of National Biography'' is vague and conjectural. Three letters were written to Thomas Seward immediately before and after his installation as curate at Eyam. He there describes himself as the son of a naval officer who would have preferred him to follow a military career and now cannot be bothered to write to him. Instead of a university education, he was privately coached before being ordained in 1772 by the Archbishop of York. He mentions having friends in Kent, and notably in Deal, from which his first letter was written. He has a close connection with a Yorkshire family from some ten years before his ordination, as well as in Scotland, from where the name Cunningham derives.〔(House of Names )〕 A later letter to a fellow cleric mentions ‘family letters from the West Indies’. Anna Seward described him as having the manners of a gentleman and he frequently mentions warm relations with, and sometimes the patronage of, members of the peerage. Following his ordination, Cunningham was appointed as curate at the Yorkshire village of Almondbury, which he left after a while to take up a tutorship which turned out badly. His next appointment was at Eyam and he was at pains to assure his future employer that, in his opinion, the Church of England ‘approaches the nearest of all others to the pure religion of the Gospel’, deprecating the schismatic tendencies in Methodism which were then dividing Eyam parish. He also forewarns Seward that he is very deaf. Anna Seward was later to comment on his near-sightedness, which obliged him to wear spectacles, his untidy appearance and affected nasal delivery.〔Teresa Barnard, ''Anna Seward: A Constructed Life'', Ashgate Publishing 2013, (p.88 )〕 Nevertheless, he was soon to become a favourite with the women of the parish and was noted as being untiring in trying to educate the poor children there, as well as tutoring those of the more socially prominent. His sermons were so much admired that Thomas Seward admitted in one of his own sermons that he had left much of the preaching to Cunningham on this account.〔John Nichols, p.58〕 Very soon after his appointment, Cunningham mentions being engaged in literary pursuits and even showed the Rector and his daughter (who was the same age as himself) some of his poems. At the time he was first venturing on publication in 1783, he encountered the labouring-class poet William Newton and introduced him to Anna Seward. She too encouraged his writing and sent a poem of Newton's, addressed “To the Rev. Peter Cunningham, author of ''Britannia’s Naval Triumph''”, to ''The Gentleman’s Magazine'' (March 1785). As well as expressing gratitude for Cunningham’s friendship, it takes up the patriotic theme of the poem and ends with the hope that he will “Still with thy pen thy country’s cause defend, Her warmest patriot and her firmest friend.”〔The poem also appeared in the Scots Magazine, (vol. 47, p.90 )〕 The patriotism did continue and Cunningham showed particular loyalty to the royal family as defenders of the Church of England. He wrote an ode that was sung during celebrations in Chesterfield of the 1788 centenary of the 'Glorious Revolution'〔Quoted by Ebenezer Rhodes, p.291〕 and in the following year published ''A sermon preached at Eyam, Derbyshire, on Thursday the 23d of April, 1789, being the day appointed for a general thanksgiving for His Majesty's happy recovery''. In his letter to the Reverend Thomas Wilson written in 1788,〔(p.137-40 )〕 Cunningham referred to ‘the former variegated and adversely shaded part of my life’ before taking the curacy at Eyam, which replicates his mention of earlier misfortune and hardship in his first letter to Seward. But now, he continues, ‘I have thoroughly reconciled myself to the obscurity and sequestered nature of my situation’. After the publication of ''The Naval Triumph'', George Rodney had offered to help find him a situation in Ireland but he had refused this, as he did initially an offer of the chaplaincy to the British factory at Smyrna so long as there was still the possibility of staying on at Eyam after Seward gave up the rectorship. Forced at last to accept the chaplaincy, he left for Smyrna in 1790 and in order to meet expenses had to sell his books and other possessions. During the years he spent in Turkey he nearly lost his life in a shipwreck, and then in a fire on land which destroyed all his papers. Reduced once more to the utmost poverty, he set out to walk back to Britain across Turkish territory, until he discovered a timely gift of money left in a book of poems with which he had been presented on leaving.〔Ebenezer Rhodes, pp.53-5〕 On his return, he took up a curacy in Chertsey, partly through the support of Charles James Fox, the dedicatee of his poem ''St Anne's Hill''. In June 1805 he died suddenly at the annual dinner of the Chertsey Friendly Society, to which he had been in the habit of preaching a sermon every year. After his death, his debts and funeral expenses were paid with the financial support of local gentry,〔Obituary in the ''Universal Theological Magazine'', September 1805, (p.168 )〕 thus bringing full circle a career marked by disappointed hopes which the support of the titled among whom he moved could do little to alleviate. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Reverend Peter Cunningham」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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