Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Morwen, Peter
MORWEN, MORWENT, or MORWINGE, PETER (1530?–1573?), translator, graduated B.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1550, and was elected a fellow in 1552. In June next year he supplicated for the degree of M.A., but he was a rigid protestant, and when Bishop Gardiner made a visitation of the university in October 1553, he was expelled from his fellowship. He took refuge in Germany (Bloxam, Reg. Magdalen College, Oxford, ii. pp. liv, cvi; Strype, Memorials, in. i. 82). On the accession of Elizabeth he returned home, was ordained deacon by Grindal on 25 Jan. 1559-60 (Strype, Grindal, p. 54), and was granted his master's degree at Oxford on 16 Feb. following. He became rector of Langwith, Nottinghamshire, in 1560; of Norbury, Derbyshire, in 1564, and of Ryton, Warwickshire, in 1556. Thomas Bentham [q. v.], bishop of Lichfield, an old college friend, made him his chaplain, and afterwards collated him to the prebend of Pipa Minor in the cathedral of Lichfield on 27 Oct. 1567. A successor was appointed in the prebend on 6 March 1572-3 (Le Neve, Fasti, i. 618). Morwen probably died a month or two before.
Morwen was a fair scholar and translated into English, apparently from the Hebrew,' Joseph Ben Gorion's 'History of the Jews.' This task Morwen undertook at the entreaty of the printer, Richard Jugge [q. v.], and it must have been mainly accomplished while Morwen was an exile in Germany. The first edition, of which no copy is in the British Museum, was dated 1558, and bore the title 'A compendious and moste marveylous History of the latter Times of the Jewes Commune Weale' (London, b. l. 8vo). Other editions—'newly corrected and amended'—appeared in 1561, 1507, 1575, 1579, 1593, and 1615. All these are in the British Museum. Morwen also rendered into English from the Latin, Conrad Gesner's 'Treasure of Euonymus conteyninge the Wonderfull hid Secretes of Nature touchinge the most apte formes to prepare and destyl medicines,' London, b. l. by John Daye, 1559, 4to. The printer signs an address to the Christian reader, which is dated 2 May 1559, and a few engravings are scattered through the text. A new edition 'A new Booke of Distillation of Waters, called the Treasure of Euonymus' is dated 1565, b. l. 4to ; it was also published by Daye.
[Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 454; Brit. Mus. Cat. s. v. 'Morwing.']