John Bidlake

The Reverend Dr. John Bidlake (1755–1814) was an English author, artist and educator.

Biography

Bidlake was born in Plymouth, the son of a jeweler, and educated at Christ Church College, Oxford, where he received his B.A., M.A., and D.D.

In the last decade of the 18th century until his death Bidlake was the Headmaster of Plymouth Grammar School where he taught both Samuel Prout and Benjamin Haydon. Among his other protégés were artist Charles Lock Eastlake, Philip Hutchins Rogers, a marine and landscape artist who later exhibited at the Royal Academy; and Nathaniel Howard, a charity boy who became "an elegant classical scholar, ... a translator of Dante into blank verse," and a Persian scholar of note. Bidlake has been described as "a man of strict religious principles, but not intolerant." He was rather different from the average schoolmaster of the period. As well he was "a little deformed man," whose "back was bent from fever".

Bidlake was curate of Plymouth's Stonehouse Chapel, now St George's Church, from 1785 to 1812. He also held the position of Common Chaplain to the Prince of Wales (later to become George III) and the Duke of Clarence (later to become William IV).