John Mitford

John Mitford (1781-1859) was an English clergyman and man of letters. Related to Attorney General and politician Lord Redesdale, who became a patron, and to the historian William Mitford, he was born at Richmond, Surrey, on 13 August 1781. He was the elder son of John Mitford (died 18 May 1806), commander of a vessel engaged in the China trade of the East India Company, by his second wife, Mary, eldest daughter of J. Allen of Clifton, Bristol. Early in life he went to school at Richmond, and for a time he was at Tonbridge school, under Vicesimus Knox. But he was mostly brought up in the diocese of Winchester, where the Rev. John Baynes of Exton, near Droxford, Hampshire, was his tutor. After a brief experience as clerk in the army pay office, Mitford on 6 March 1801 matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, under the tutorship of Edward Copleston, with Reginald Heber as a close friend, and graduated B.A. on 17 December 1804.