▶Date of birth:  1792        Place of birth: Bungay, Suffolk

▶Father:  Robert Meek     Mother: Sarah Whiskin

▶Spouse(s):  (1) Jane Webber; (2) Emma Macqueen    Date(s) of marriage:  (1) 22 July 1812; (2) 9 March 1837     Place(s) of marriage: (1) St. Stephens-in-Brannel, Cornwall; (2) Walcot, Bath, Somerset

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Congregational minister, Anglican); Author

▶Lifestory: Robert Meek began his life in the Church as a Congregationalist before being received into the Anglican Church in 1830; he lived in Pittville for a while during his tenure as Rector of Sutton Bonnington in Nottinghamshire. Meek was born in Suffolk, apparently to Robert Meek and his wife Sarah (née Whiskin), in 1792. He served as an Independent/Congregational Minister at St Columba, Cornwall c1809-12, and at St Ives 1813-15. He apparently married Jane Webber in Cornwall in 1812, and subsequently left Cornwall for Devon, ministering at South Moulton 1815-22, and, moving further east, at the Old Meeting House, Westbury, Wiltshire 1827-9.

In 1829 he explained to the Bishop of Salisbury that he had been raised in the Church of England and that after twenty years as a Nonconformist Minister he wished to return to the Church of England. With this in mind, in 1830 he was admitted as a sizar and a “ten-year man” to St John’s College, Cambridge, and ordained Deacon and then Priest (both Salisbury) later that year. He then entered the Anglican ministry and was licensed Curate of Yatton Keynell and Castle Combe, Wiltshire 1830-4.

Meek published The mutual recognition of glorified saints in 1830 (ed. 3, 1837), and in 1834 The Church of England a faithful witness against the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome. In the same year he was appointed Rector of Brixton Deverill, Wiltshire, where he remained until 1846; he simultaneously officiated as Perpetual Curate of Hill Deverill 1837-8. His religious publications continued in 1835 with his Passion Week, a practical exposition. After the death of his wife Jane in 1836, at the Rectory of Brixton Deverill, he married again, in 1837, to Emma, daughter of John Donald  Macqueen, of Bath. Although he had not graduated from a university he was awarded a Lambeth MA by the Archbishop of Canterbury; shortly after this he was presented with the rectory of Richmond, Yorkshire, which he held until 1843, when he became Rector of Sutton Bonnington in Nottinghamshire until 1866.

During some of this time he was presumably an absentee vicar, as between 1859 and 1861 he was recorded as living at 9 Leamington Place (now 24 Prestbury Road), Pittville, Cheltenham. After a break from publishing for some years, he reappeared as the author of Heavenly things or the blessed hope in 1854, followed by The martyr of Allahabad; memorials of Ensign A. M. H. Clark in 1857, and Ministering angles (1864).

Meek died at his home, Bevere Firs, Claines, near Worcester, on 19 February 1866, at the age of seventy-four. His estate at death was sworn at under £2,000.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  Sutton Bonnington      Moved from Pittville to: Sutton Bonnington

▶Date of death:  19 February 1866      Place of death: Bevere Firs, Claines, near Worcester

▶Date of burial:  24 February 1866       Place of burial: Sutton Bonnington, Nottinghamshire

▶Notes:  Boase      ID: 9540

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden