Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Lupton, Joseph Hirst
LUPTON, JOSEPH HIRST (1836–1905), scholar and schoolmaster, born at Wakefield on 15 Jan. 1836, was second son of Joseph Lupton, headmaster of the Greencoat School at Wakefield, Yorkshire, by his wife Mary Hirst, a writer of verse, some of which is included in ‘Poems of Three Generations’ (privately printed, Chiswick Press, 1910). In the cathedral at Wakefield Lupton placed a stained glass window, by Kempe, in memory of his parents. Educated first at Queen Elizabeth grammar school, Wakefield, and then at Giggleswick school, where he became captain, he was admitted on 3 July 1854 to a sizarship at St. John's College, Cambridge. In 1858 he graduated B.A., being bracketed fifth in the first class in the classical tripos. In June of the same year he was awarded one of the members' prizes for a Latin essay.
After assisting the headmaster of Wakefield grammar school Lupton was appointed, in 1859, second classical master in the City of London school, then in Milk Street, Cheapside. Among his pupils there were Henry Palin Gurney [q. v. Suppl. II] and James Smith Reid, now professor of ancient history at Cambridge. Ordained deacon in 1859 and priest in 1860, he served as curate at St. Paul's church, Avenue Road, N.W., and afterwards to W. Sparrow Simpson, rector of St. Matthew's church, Friday Street, E.C. Proceeding M.A. in 1861, he succeeded to the fellowship at St. John's College, Cambridge, vacated by (Sir) John Eldon Gorst on 19 March 1861. In 1864 he was appointed sur-master and second mathematical master in St. Paul's school, London, then in St. Paul's churchyard, and from 1884 at Hammersmith. He remained sur-master for thirty-five years, the high masters being successively Herbert Kynaston [q. v.] and Frederick William Walker [q. v. Suppl. II]. In 1897 Lupton became Latin master of the upper eighth and honorary librarian. After his retirement in 1899 the Lupton prize (for a knowledge of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer) was founded to commemorate his long service at the school.
Lupton, who had published in 1864 ‘Wakefield Worthies,’ an account of the town and its chief inhabitants, subsequently devoted his leisure to researches into the life and works of Dean Colet, the founder of St. Paul's school. He published for the first time the following works of Colet: ‘De Sacramentis Ecclesiæ’ (1867) from the MS. in the library of St. Paul's; ‘On the Hierarchies of Dionysius’ (1869); ‘Exposition of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans’ (1873); ‘Exposition of St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians’ (1874); and ‘Letters to Radulphus on the Mosaic Account of the Creation, together with other Treatises’ (1876). Each of these volumes (save the first) included a translation and an erudite introduction. There followed, in 1883, a translation of the letters of Erasmus to Jodocus Jonas (1519), containing the lives of Jehan Vitrier, warden of the Franciscan convent at St. Omer, and of Colet. In 1887 Lupton's chief original work, ‘The Life of Dean Colet’ (new edit. 1909), gave a scholarly presentment of Colet's aims and career.
Lupton was Hulsean lecturer at Cambridge in 1887, became preacher to Gray's Inn in 1890, won the Seatonian prize for a sacred poem at Cambridge in 1897, and proceeded B.D. in 1893 with a thesis on ‘The Influence of Dean Colet upon the Reformation of the English Church,’ and D.D. in 1896 with a dissertation on Archbishop Wake's ‘Project of Union between the Gallican and Anglican Churches (1717–1720).’ He died at Earl's Terrace, Kensington, on 15 Dec. 1905, and was buried in Hammersmith cemetery.
Lupton married twice: (1) on 30 Aug. 1864 Mary Ann (d. Oct. 1879), daughter of Thomas St. Clair MacDougal, a colleague at the City of London school (by her he had three sons and two daughters); (2) in 1884 Alice (d. 1902), daughter of Thomas Lea of Highgate.
In memory of his first wife Lupton erected a drinking fountain at Brook Green and founded the ‘Mary Lupton’ prizes for French and German at St. Paul's School for Girls. In memory of his second wife he founded the ‘Alice Lupton’ prizes for music at St. Paul's School for Girls, and for scripture and church history at the North London Collegiate School for Girls.
Lupton, whose speech and writing were both characterised by a graceful dignity, published, besides the works already mentioned:
- ‘St. John of Damascus’ in the ‘Lives of the Fathers for English Readers’ series, 1882.
- ‘An Introduction to Latin Elegiac Verse Composition,’ 1885; with key, 1886; reprinted, 1888; with vocabulary, 1893.
- ‘An Introduction to Latin Lyric Verse Composition,’ 1888; with a key, 1888.
- ‘Commentary on the First and Second Books of Esdras in the Apocrypha.’
He also edited More's ‘Utopia’ in Latin from the edition of March 1518, and in English from the first edition of 1551; with introduction, notes and facsimiles (1895); and ‘Erasmi Concio de Puero Jesu,’ a sermon on the Child Jesus by Desiderius Erasmus, in an old English version of unknown authorship, with Introduction and Notes (1901). He was a contributor to this Dictionary, to Smith and Wace's ‘Dictionary of Christian Biography,’ to Hastings's ‘Dictionary of the Bible,’ and to ‘Notes and Queries.’
[Private information; the Eagle (St. John's College, Cambridge), vol. xxvii. No. 139, March 1906; Pauline (St. Paul's School magazine, published at the school, West Kensington), July 1899, pp. 95–97, and April 1906, pp. 12–19; Res Paulinæ (the eighth half-century of St. Paul's School, 1859–1909), pp. 28, 104, 112, 221, and 223; the Paulina (St. Paul's (Girls) School magazine, Hammersmith), March 1906.]