Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Andrewes, Gerrard
ANDREWES, GERRARD (1750-1825), divine, was the son of Gerrard Andrewes, vicar of Syston and St. Nicholas, Leicester, and master of the Leicester Grammar School. Cradock, who was one of his pupils, says that he was an excellent scholar, and had become an admirable reader by attending Garrick (Memoirs i. 3 and iv. 90). The younger Gerrard was born at Leicester 3 April 1750, and educated at Westminster. He was elected to a Westminster scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, took his B.A. degree in 1773, M.A. 1779, and S.T.P. 1809. He became occasional preacher at St. Bride's, and afterwards at St. James's, in the Hampstead Road. In 1788 an old pupil, Lord Barrington, gave him the living of Zeal Monachorum, in Devonshire; and on 1 Dec. 1788 he married Elizabeth Maria, daughter of the Rev. Thomas Bale, by whom he had three daughters and a son, who married the daughter of Dr. Heberden. In 1791 he became preacher at the Magdalen, and in 1799 at the Foundling Hospital. Lady Talbot admired his sermons, and presented him in 1800 to the living of Mickleham, Surrey, to which he was again presented in 1802 after resigning it upon his collation by Bishop Porteus to St. James's, Piccadilly. In 1809 he gave up Mickleham on his appointment by Perceval to the deanery of Canterbury. In 1812 he declined an offer of the bishopric of Chester on the plea of advancing years. Dibdin says that his 'full strong voice' was never more sonorous and effective than when, in answer to the prime minister's question whether he would be a bishop, he answered, 'Nolo' (Dibdin, Reminiscences, i. 173). He died 2 June 1825 at the rectory of Piccadilly, and was buried at Great Bookham, Surrey. He appears to have been an amiable man, and effective in the pulpit, where, we are told, he was 'fond of insisting on the evidences, and of enforcing, from motives of propriety and expediency, the moral duties.' His only publications are a few sermons.
[Nichols's Illustrations, vi. 256; Gent. Mag. xciii. 84; Cradock's Memoirs.]