Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Littleton, Edward (d.1733)
LITTLETON, EDWARD, LL.D. (d. 1733), divine and poet, was educated upon the royal foundation at Eton under Dr. Snape. In 1716 he was elected to a scholarship at King's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1720, M.A. in 1724, and LL.D. comitiis regiis in 1728 (Graduati Cantabr. 1823, p. 295). While an undergraduate he composed a humorous poem entitled ‘A Letter from Cambridge to Master Henry Archer, a young gentleman at Eton School.’ This and his more celebrated poem ‘On a Spider’ are correctly printed in Dodsley's ‘Collection of Poems,’ edited by Isaac Reed (1782, vi. 316, 324). He also wrote a pastoral elegy on the death of Ralph Banks, a scholar of King's College, but only a few fragments have been preserved. In 1720 Littleton was appointed an assistant-master at Eton. In 1726 he was elected a fellow of the college, and presented to the vicarage of Mapledurham, Oxfordshire. On 30 Jan. 1730 he preached a sermon before the House of Commons at St. Margaret's, Westminster, and on 9 June 1730 was appointed one of the king's chaplains. He died on 16 Nov. 1733, and was buried in his church at Mapledurhan. He married Frances, daughter of Barnham Goode, under-master of Eton. Her second husband was Dr. John Burton (1696–1771) [q. v.], Littleton's successor in the living at Mapledurham.
Two volumes of his ‘Sermons upon several Practical Subjects,’ dedicated to the Queen Caroline, were published by subscription in 1735, 8vo, for the benefit of his widow and his three children. A third edition, with a memoir of the author by Dr. Thomas Morell [q. v.], appeared in 1749, 12mo.
[Memoir by Dr. Thomas Morell; Harwood's Alumni Eton. pp. 86, 296; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. vii. 424, xx. 328, xxii. 386; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iv. 602, 730, v. 711; Darling's Cycl. Bibliographica.]