Men of Kent and Kentishmen/Mark Hildesley
Mark Hildesley,
BISHOP,
Was born at Marston, near Sittingbourne, in 1698, of which place his father was rector. He was by descent connected with the royal family of England. He was educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became a Fellow. After ordination, and holding several cures, he became rector of Holwell, in Bedfordshire. His exemplary conduct as a parish minister for twenty years, attracted the attention of the Duke of Athol, who, as lord of the Isle of Man, selected him to succeed the excellent and famous Bishop Wilson, in that Island. He devoted himself to the duties of his episcopal charge with the utmost assiduity, undertaking amongst other things, the task of getting the Scriptures, and Book of Common Prayer, translated into the Manx language. This task he just lived to see completed, for on the day after receiving the last part of the translation, he was seized with apoplexy, and died the 7th Dec, 1772. He was the author of a tract entitled "Plain Instructions for young persons in the principles of the Christian Religion," designed for the use of the Isle and Diocese of Man, published in 1762 and 1767. Bishop Hildesley's Memoirs have been written by the Rev. Weeden Butler, 1799, (q. v).