Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hey, John
HEY, JOHN (1734–1815), divine, elder brother of William Hey [q. v.] and Richard Hey [q. v.], was born in July 1734, entered Catharine Hall, Cambridge, in 1751, graduated B.A. in 1755 and M.A. in 1758. He became a fellow of Sidney Sussex College in 1758, and was tutor from 1760 to 1779. He took his B.D. degree in 1765, and his D.D. in 1780. He won the Seatonian prize poem in 1763, published as ‘The Redemption: a Poetical Essay.’ His lectures upon morality were admired, and were attended by William Pitt. In 1779 Lord Maynard presented him to the rectory of Passenham, near Stony Stratford, and he afterwards obtained the adjacent rectory of Calverton in exchange for a more distant living offered to him by Lord Clarendon; and as his two rectories were of small population, was able to attend effectually to the wants of his parishioners. His only absences were caused by his election in 1780 to the Norrisian professorship of divinity, of which he was the first holder. He was re-elected in 1785 and in 1790. According to the regulations then in force, he might have been elected for another term if he had resigned in 1794, before reaching the age of sixty, but declined to do so. He held his livings until 1814, when he resigned them and moved to London. He died 17 March 1815, and was buried in St. John's Chapel, St. John's Wood.
Hey's lectures in divinity were published in 1796 in 4 vols. 8vo. A second edition appeared in 1822, and a third, edited by Turton, appeared in 1841. He published also in 1801 a ‘Set of Discourses on the Malevolent Passions’ (reprinted 1815), and printed, but did not publish, in 1811, ‘General Observations on the Writings of St. Paul.’ He published, also, several sermons. Hey's lectures are agreeably written, and candid in treatment of opponents. He was a decided rationalist, representing the difference between the church of England and the unitarians as little more than verbal, though he defended subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles.
[Gent. Mag. 1815, i. 371; L. Stephen's English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, i. 424–6.]