Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Swinden, Tobias
SWINDEN, TOBIAS (d. 1719), divine, was probably the son of Tobias Swinden, appointed a canon of York in 1660 (Le Neve, Fasti, iii. 226). He was admitted to Jesus College, Cambridge, as a pensioner, on 3 Dec. 1674, graduating B.A. in 1678 and M.A. in 1682. He was appointed rector of Cuxton in Kent on 5 July 1688, and on 13 April 1689 became vicar of Shorne in the same county. He died in 1719. Of his three sons, Tobias (d. 1754), of Queens' College, Cambridge, was vicar of Lamberhurst and rector of Kingsdown in Kent; and Samuel Francis (d. 1764) of University College, Oxford, was rector of Stifford in Essex, and master of the academy of Greenwich, where James Wolfe (afterwards general) [q. v.] and John Jervis (afterwards Earl St. Vincent) [q. v.] were his pupils.
Swinden was the author of ‘An Enquiry into the Nature and Place of Hell,’ London, 1714, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1727, which was translated into French in 1728 by Jean Bion, minister of the English church at Amsterdam; other editions of the translation appeared in 1733 and 1757.
[Thorpe's Registrum Roffense, p. 770; Gent. Mag. 1789 ii. 620; Palin's Stifford, 1871, p. 179; Graduati Cantabr. 1659–1787, p. 377; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714 iv. 1448, 1715–1886 iv. 1378; Atterbury's Epistolary Corresp. ii. 472; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 80; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. v. 198; Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 5820 f. 163.]