Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hinds, Samuel

by Beaver Henry Blacker

HINDS, SAMUEL, D.D. (1793–1872), bishop of Norwich, son of Abel Hinds of Barbadoes, was born in Barbadoes in 1793, some members of his family having been among the earlier settlers and chief landed proprietors. Passing from a school near Bristol, in which from time to time were many young West Indians, he entered Queen's College, Oxford, in November 1811, and graduated B.A. 1815, M.A. 1818, and B.D. and D.D. 1831. In 1818 he gained the chancellor's prize for a Latin essay, and in 1822 he was admitted into holy orders. Early in life he was connected as a missionary with the Society for the Conversion of Negroes. He was for some time principal of Codrington College, Barbadoes; became in 1827 vice-principal of St. Alban Hall, Oxford, under Richard Whately, D.D., who had been his private tutor, and on Whately's elevation to the archbishopric of Dublin in 1831, Hinds was appointed his domestic chaplain. This office, however, he was obliged from ill-health to resign in 1833, when he returned to England. In 1834 he was presented to the vicarage of Yardley, Hertfordshire, which benefice he held with the rural deanery of the district until January 1843, when he was collated to the vicarage of the united parishes of Castleknock, Clonsilla, and Mullahidart, with the prebend of Castleknock in St. Patrick's Cathedral, in the diocese of Dublin. At the same time he again became one of Archbishop Whately's chaplains. In 1846 he was appointed first chaplain to the Earl of Bessborough, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and in the following year to the Earl of Clarendon, who had succeeded to the lord-lieutenancy. He resigned the benefice of Castleknock in September 1848, when he was presented by the crown to the deanery of Carlisle. In October 1849 he was raised to the bishopric of Norwich, on the death of Bishop Stanley, and he held it until 1857, when domestic circumstances induced him to resign.

Hinds was a man of learning, ability, and engaging character. In politics he was a moderate liberal, while he was one of the most ‘advanced’ school of thought on religious questions, especially during the last few years of his life. He died on 7 Feb. 1872, at Notting Hill, London. He married (1) a daughter of Abel Clinkett of Barbadoes, who died in 1834. He married a second time about 1856.

Besides many separate sermons and pamphlets he was the author of the following:

1. ‘Quam vim in moribus conformandis exhibeant rerumpublicarum subitæ mutationes: a prize essay in the University of Oxford,’ Oxford, 1818 (private impression only).
2. ‘History of the Rise and Early Progress of Christianity’ (contributed originally to the ‘Encyclopædia Metropolitana’), 2 vols., London, 1828; 2nd edit. 1846.
3. ‘The Catechist's Manual and Family Lecturer,’ Oxford, 1829; 2nd edit. 1855.
4. ‘The Three Temples of the One True God contrasted,’ Oxford, 1830; 3rd edit. London, 1857.
5. ‘An Inquiry into the Proofs, Nature, and Extent of Inspiration, and into the Authority of Scripture,’ Oxford, 1831.
6. ‘Sonnets and other short Poems, chiefly on Sacred Subjects,’ London, 1834.
7. ‘On the Colonisation of New Zealand,’ London, 1838.
8. ‘Scripture and the Authorized Version of Scripture,’ &c., London, 1845; 2nd edit., with additions, 1853.
9. ‘Introduction to Logic’ (based on Whately's ‘Elements,’ and reprinted from the ‘Encyclopædia Metropolitana’).

[Men of the Time, ed. 1868, p. 413; Cat. of Oxford Graduates, p. 323; Cotton's Fasti Ecclesiæ Hibernicæ, ii. 158, v. 123; Ann. Reg. 1872, p. 141; Life and Correspondence of Archbishop Whately, vol. i.; Brit. Mus. Cat. of Printed Books.]

B. H. B.