# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Darnell, William Nicholas

​DARNELL, WILLIAM NICHOLAS (1776–1865), theological writer and antiquary, was the son of William Darnell, a wine-merchant of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he was born on 14 March 1776. He received his preliminary education at the Newcastle grammar school under the auspices of those able scholars the Revs. Hugh and Edward Moises, uncle and nephew, successively head-masters. Thence he was elected to the Durham scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, of which house he subsequently became fellow and tutor, proceeding B.A. on 25 May 1796, M.A. on 23 Jan. 1800, and B.D. on 12 May 1808. He was appointed university examiner in 1801, 1803, and 1804, and select preacher in 1807 (Honours Register of University of Oxford, 1883). Among his more distinguished pupils at Corpus was John Keble, who long afterwards, in 1847, dedicated to his old tutor a volume of sermons ‘in ever grateful memory of invaluable helps and warnings received from him in early youth.’ Darnell bade farewell to Oxford in 1809, having been presented by Archdeacon Thorp to the rectory of St. Mary-le-Bow in Durham, which he held until 1815. In the last-named year he was collated to the vicarage of Stockton-upon-Tees by Bishop Barrington, who also gave him on 12 Jan. 1816 the ninth stall, and on 12 Oct. 1820 translated him to the sixth stall in Durham Cathedral. From 1820 to 1827 he was perpetual curate of St. Margaret's in Durham, and from 1827 to 1831 vicar of Norham, both of these livings being in the gift of the dean and chapter. Together with his stall and incumbency in the diocese of Durham, he held for several years previously to 1828 the vicarage of Lastingham, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, one of the most widely scattered parishes in England, a preferment which he owed to Lord-chancellor Eldon, his fellow-townsman. Darnell was of necessity non-resident at Lastingham, but when he visited the place he considerately raised the stipend of the curate in charge. In 1831, on the advancement of Dr. Phillpotts to the see of Exeter, Darnell exchanged his stall at Durham for the valuable rectory of Stanhope, which he continued to hold until his death on 19 June 1865. He was buried on the 24th in the churchyard of Durham Cathedral. By his wife, Miss Bowe of Scorton, who died in 1864, he had a large family.
Darnell printed some occasional discourses, including a sermon preached at the archdeacon's visitation at St. Mary-le-Bow in 1810, one on the death of George III, preached at Stockton, one on the death of Princess Charlotte, also preached at Stockton, one on the death of Archdeacon Bowyer in Durham Cathedral in 1826, and one on the death of his friend and schoolfellow, Henry Burrell of Lincoln's Inn, preached at Bolton Chapel in Northumberland. He was also the author of ‘Two Charges delivered in the years 1828 and 1829 to the Clergy of the officialty of the Dean and Chapter of Durham,’ 8vo, Berwick, 1829. In 1816 he issued a volume of sermons dedicated to his patron, Bishop Barrington [q. v.], and in 1818 an abridgment of Jeremy Taylor's ‘Great Exemplar of Sanctity.’ In 1831 he edited from the manuscripts in the Dean and Chapter Library the ​‘Correspondence of Isaac Basire,’ archdeacon of Northumberland and prebendary of Durham in the reigns of Charles I and Charles II. He likewise published an edition of the ‘Book of Wisdom, with a short preface and notes,’ and in 1839 ‘An Arrangement and Classification of the Psalms.’ His ‘Lines suggested by the Death of Lord Collingwood,’ another distinguished pupil of the Newcastle grammar school, were reprinted by John Adamson in 1842. A well-written ballad from his pen entitled ‘The King of the Picts and St. Cuthbert’ is to be found at pp. 60–1 of Raine's ‘History of North Durham.’
In 1804 Darnell became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and was for a few years a member of the kindred society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1812 he was one of the committee appointed to administer the funds raised by subscription for illustrating Surtees's ‘History of Durham.’ He was also a trustee of the charities of Lord Crewe, bishop of Durham, having been chosen in 1826. Among other useful works he built a church at Thornley, in the parish of Wolsingham, where he had an estate, and instituted the Darnell School Prize Fund for the encouragement of the study of the prayer-book in our parochial schools.
G. G.