William French

William French may refer to:

Westminster massacre

The Westminster massacre (March 13, 1775) was the killing of two men by British colonial officials (a band of local men led by the local sheriff) in Westminster, Vermont, which was then part of the New Hampshire Grants, whose control was at the time disputed between its residents and the Province of New York.

The event happened 5 years after the Boston massacre.

OUR COUNTRY by Benson J. Lossing 1877

The precedence as to the time and place where blood was first shed in the Revolution is claimed for Westminster, Vermont, where, more than a month before the affair at Lexington, officers of the crown in endeavoring to subdue a mob, caused the death of one of the rioters. The event is recorded in an epitaph inscribed upon a slab of slate in the old burial-ground at Westminster, in the following words:

"In Memory of WILLIAM FRENCH, son to Mr. Nathaniel French, who was Shot at Westminister, March ye 13th, 1775, by the hands of Cruel Ministerial tools of George ye 3d, in the Court-house at a 11 O'clock at Night, in the 22nd year of his Age.

William French (educator)

William French, D.D. (1786–1849) was master of Jesus College, Cambridge.

Life

French was the son of a rich yeoman at Eye, Suffolk. He was sent to Ipswich Grammar School, where the Rev. Mr. Howarth was head-master, and he afterwards entered Caius College, Cambridge. After a successful college career he came out in 1811 as second wrangler, the senior being Thomas Edward Dicey of Trinity, the two being bracketed equal as Smith's prizemen. Soon after French was elected fellow and tutor of Pembroke College, and in 1814 took his M.A. degree. He was only thirty-four years old in 1820 when he was appointed master of Jesus College by Bowyer Sparke, bishop of Ely, in whose family he had been private tutor.

In the following year he was made D.D. by royal mandate, and served the office of vice-chancellor, a position which he filled again in 1834, when he also acted as one of the syndics appointed to superintend the building of the Fitzwilliam Museum. He was presented by the lord chancellor to the living of Moor Monkton, Yorkshire, in 1827, and became a canon of Ely in 1832. He discharged his various functions with urbanity and integrity. His mathematical attainments were of the highest order, and to classical scholarship he added a considerable acquaintance with oriental languages. He took a distinguished part in the translations made by himself and Mr. George Skinner of the Psalms and Proverbs. He managed the affairs of his college so as greatly to improve its finances, and his name is connected with the remarkable restoration of Jesus College Chapel, begun under his direction by his gift of coloured glass for the eastern triplet.