Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chelsum, James
CHELSUM, JAMES, D.D. (1740?–1801), an opponent of Gibbon, son of a member of the choir of Westminster Abbey, or perhaps of the Chapel Royal (Neale, Westminster Abbey, li. 290), was born about 1740. He was admitted to Westminster School on Bishop Williams’s foundation, and thereafter entered Christ Church, Oxford. He proceeded B.A. 4 May 1759, M.A. 22 May 1762, B.D. 11 Nov. 1772, and D.D. 18 June 1773. He was ordained in March 1762, and subsequently held a number of ecclesiastical appointments. He was one of the preachers at Whitehall, chaplain to the bishops of Worcester and Winchester, rector of Droxford, Hampshire, and vicar of Lathbury, Buckinghamshire. He also held the benetice of Badger in Shropshire. Chelsum was a man of considerable learning, but of a somewhat strange and variable disposition, and towards the end of his life his mind became affected. He died near London in 1801, and was buried at Droxford. Chelsum, in ‘Remarks on the two last chapters of Mr. Gibbon’s “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” in a letter to a friend’ (1776, published first anonymously, but afterwards enlarged and acknowledged, Oxford, 1778), attacked the account given by Gibbon of the growth of the christian church. In this he was assisted by; Dr. Randolph, the president of Corpus Christi College (preface, p. xiv). Gibbon replied in a ‘Vindication' (1779), in which he admitted that the ‘zeal of the confederate doctors is enlightened by some rays of knowledge' but sneers ‘at the rustic cudgel of the staunch and sturdy Polemics,' (pp. 105, 106), and proceeds to consider some of their objections in detail. Chelsum answered this in ‘A Reply to Mr. Gibbon’s Vindication’ (Winchester, 1785), in which he adduces fresh arguments in support of his position, and asserts that he conducted the discussion with candour and moderation. Chelsum also wrote ‘A History of the Art of Engraving in Mezzotinto’ (anonymous, Winchester, 1786), and some sermons.
[Gent. Mag. 1801 part. ii., 1802 part i.; Catalogue of Oxford Graduates; British Museum Catalogue.]