# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Majendie, Henry William

​MAJENDIE, HENRY WILLIAM (1754–1830), bishop of Chester and Bangor, was of Huguenot extraction. His grandfather, André de Majendie, a member of an ancient family of Béarn, was compelled to leave France by the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and, after a few years' residence in Holland, was naturalised as a British subject in 1700. He settled at Exeter, where for many years he ministered to the French congregation. His elder son, John James (1709-1783), the bishop's father, took orders in the church of England, received the degree of D.D. from Archbishop Cornwallis at Lambeth, 6 Sept. 1769 (Gent. Mag. 1864, pt. i. p. 638), and obtained much valuable preferment, eventually attaining to a canonry at Windsor in 1774. He was the author of several religious works both in French and English, and was Queen Charlotte's instructor in the English language, and tutor to her sons, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York (cf. ib. 1783, pt. ii. p. 716). By his wife, Elizabeth Prevost, he left two sons, Henry William and Lewis (afterwards of Hedingham Castle).
Henry William, born in London 7 Oct. 1754, was educated at Charterhouse under Dr. Samuel Berdmore [q. v.] In 1771 he entered at Christ's College, Cambridge, where in the following year he secured a scholarship. He graduated B.A. in 1776 without honours, but in the same year procured election to the fellowship just vacated by William Paley. In 1781 he was appointed preceptor to Prince William, afterwards William IV. This appointment proved the stepping-stone to future advancement. In 1785 he was made a canon of Windsor, and in 1790 vicar of Nether Stowey, where he gained the friendship and earned the lifelong respect of Thomas Poole, the well known correspondent of Coleridge (see Thomas Poole and his Friends, i. 27, 28, 59, 60, 61, 81). Majendie was a man of somewhat enlightened views, for he established a Sunday-school at Nether Stowey at a time when such an institution was regarded by most of ​the clergy as a dangerous novelty. He took the degree of D.D. in 1791. On being appointed vicar of Hungerford in 1793, ha resigned Nether Stowey, conscientiously refusing to hold two cures of souls at the same time. In 1798 the canonry of Windsor was exchanged for one at St. Paul's, and, at the king's special request, the vicarage of Hungerford for that of Windsor (Gent. Mag. 1830, pt. ii. p. 273). On the translation of Bishop Cleaver [q. v.] from Chester to Bangor in 1800, Majendie was nominated to Chester, which he governed for nine years, holding his Windsor canonry in commendam. As bishop of Chester he preached before the House of Lords on the occasion of the peace of Amiens. Translated to Bangor in 1809, he held that see till his death, 9 July 1830. He was buried at Longdon in Staffordshire. By his wife Anne Routledge of Stapleton, Cumberland, whom he married on 11 April 1785, he had thirteen children.
Majendie was a favourable specimen of the Georgian prelates. A good preacher and, for his time, an active administrator, he took a sincere interest in the welfare of his clergy. That he was not free from the prevailing nepotism of the day is shown by the advancement of his relatives to the best pieces of preferment at his disposal. His contemporaries allude to the corpulence of the bishop's person, and the imperturbable gravity of his countenance (Cheshire Sheaf, i. 86). He only published a few sermons and charges.
Lewis A. Majendie's An Account of the De Majendie Family, both French and English, from 1365 to the present century, privately printed, 1878; David C. A. Agnew's Protestant Exiles from France, ii. 406 &c., 423 &c.; Registers of Christ's Coll., Cambridge, examined for the present writer by the Master, Dr. Peile; Le Neve's Fasti; Stubbs's Registrum; Act Books of the diocese of Chester; information supplied by Miss Majendie (of Speen) and the vicars of Nether Stowey. Hungerford, and Longdon.]
F. S.