Jeremiah MILLES D.D. [15909]

   Another name for Jeremiah was Dean MILLES.

  General Notes:

Jeremiah Milles (1714-1784) was the son of the vicar of Duloe in Cornwall and was educated at Eton and matriculated in 1729 as a gentleman-commoner at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (BA 1733, MA 1735, BD and DD 1747). He then went on a grand tour of Europe. He returned to England and took Holy Orders. He became Dean of Exeter in 1762. He was President of the Society of Antiquaries from 1768 until his death on 13 February 1784.

Milles, Jeremiah, s Jer., of Highclere, Hants, cler. CORPUS CHRISTI COLL., matric 9 Jul, 1729, aged 15; B.A. 1733, M.A. 1735, B. & D.D. 1747, dean of Exeter 1762, F.A.S. 1741, and F.R.S. , president of the Society of antiquaries 1765, rector of Saltwood with Hythe, Kent, 1744, treasurer of Lismore Cathedral 1735, precentor of Waterford 1737-44, rector of St Nicholas Acon, Lombard St, with Merstham, Surrey, and sinecure rector of West Ferring, Sussex, precentor and preb. of Exeter 1747, died 13 Feb 1784. See Gents Mag., p. 153.
Ref: Oxford University Alumni, 1500-1886

In 1753 when still a prebendary of Exeter he sent out a questionnaire to all parishes of the diocese of Exeter, in Devon, generally known as "Dean Milles' Questionnaire" or "Dean Milles' Parochial Questionnaire".
He was a pioneer of the circulated questionnaire, and until the end of the eighteenth century was the most successful user of the technique as a research tool. Milles had been a fellow the Society of Antiquaries in London since 1741, and it was possibly from his example that James Theobald, the Society's president, proposed the production by the Society of its own questionnaire on natural and civil history "Whereby such gentlemen of learning and industry as should be disposed to promote usefull and entertaining researches of those kinds, might be directed in their choice of materials, and the Society reap the fruits of their labours and knowledge". In June 1754 he read out at the Society a pamphlet entitled "Queries Proposed to Gentlemen in the Several Parts of Great Britain, In hope of obtaining, from their Answers, a better Knowledge of its Antiquities and Natural History".
Wikipedia 2013.

MILLES, JEREMIAH (1714-1784), antiquary, said to have been, born at Duloe, Cornwall, in was son of the Rev. Jeremiah Miller, forty two years vicar of Dubs [see under Milles, Isaac], the entry of Milles's baptism does not appear in Duloe parish registers. He was educated at the expense of his uncle, Dr. Thomas Milles [q. v.], bishop of Waterford and Lismore, first as an oppidan at Eton, and then at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 9 July 1729 as a gentleman-commoner (B.A. 1733, M.A. 1736, and B.D. and D.D. 1747). The greater part of the years 1733-7 was spent by Miles and his cousin, Richard Pococke [q, v.], afterwards bishop of Meath, in travelling through Europe. Numerous manuscripts descriptive of these and of his later expeditions and a register of letters written by him from abroad are among the British Museum Addit. MSS. He was ordained in the English church, and at once received from his uncle, Bishop Milles, preferment in Ireland. From 1735 to 1745 he held the treasurership of Lismore Cathedral, he was precentor of Waterford Cathedral from 31 Dec. 1737 to 12 Nov. 1744, and for a short time he had a living near Waterford; but on the death of his uncle in 1740 he inherited a considerable fortune, and he preferred to live in England. While in Ireland he gave 50L. for the adornment of Waterford Cathedral (Pococke, Irish Tour, 1752, p 132). Milles was from early life interested in archaeology. He was elected, F.S.A. in 1741, F.R.S. in 1742, and about that date he became a member of the Egyptian Club to inquire into Egyptian antiquities. Through his marriage, on 29 May 1745 to Edith, daughter of Archbishop Potter, ample preferments came to him. From 1744 to 1746 he was rector of Saltwood with Hythe in Kent, he enjoyed the sinecure rectory of West Tarring in Sussex for many years to 1779, when he resigned in favour of his son; from 1746 to his death he filled the benefice of Merstham in Surrey, and from 1746 until he died he held the valuable rectory of St. Edmund the King with St. Nicholas Aeons. Lombard Street, in the city of London. At West Tarring Milles repaired the old parsonage hall, and adapted it for a charity school (Topographical Miscellanies,1792, sub "Terriug"), and the rectory house at Mersthanam was rebuilt by him in 1768, but some of the stained glass in the church windows is said to have vanished during his incumbency.
On the presentation of his father-in-law, patron for that turn by reason of a grant made by the Bishop of Exeter to
him he was admitted on 11 May 1747 to the precentorship of Exeter Cathedral and to a prebendal stall, with the emoluments of a Canon residentiary. He repainted the stately mantlepiece in the great hall of the precentor's house, and surmounted it with the arms of his family and those of Archbishop Potter. The stall was retained by Milles unti1 his death, but he vacated the precentorship on 28 April 1762 through his election by the chapter to succeed Bishop Lyttelton as their dean. An interesting letter from him to George Grenville on the deanery house at Exeter is in the Grenville Papers, iv. 20-3. Milles on Lyttleton's death at the close of 1768, also succeeded him as president of the Society of Antiquaries, a Position which he retained as long as he lived. As prolocutor of the lower house of convocation he was presented to the upper house by Bishop John Butler on 23 Jan. 1775, and the "Oratiuncula" then delivered by Butler is printed in his "Concio ad clernm Cant. Provincae, 1775." Milles died at Harley Street, London, on 18 Feb. 1764, and on 19 Feb, was buried by the side of his wife (who had died on 9 June 1751, aged 35) in the church of St. Edmund the King A monument by Bacon was placed there to their memory. Their issue was three sons, Jeremiah, Richard and Thomas, and two daughters one of whom married Captain Blake (Cottle, Early Recollections, i. 34). Many references to the sons are in the "Early Diary of Frances Burney" (i. 234-51), where they are praised "as very agreeable and amiable, appearing to regard their father only as an elder brother. "Richard Gough speaks of
the dean's domestic happiness but thought that he did not maintain sufficient control over the proceedings of the Antiquaries. Unfortunately for his reputation Milles rushed into the Chatterton dispute with an extravagant edition of "Poems supposed to have been written at Bristol in the Fifteenth Century by Thomas Rowley, Priest. With a Commentary," 1782, copies of which, with numerous manuscript notes by FIaslewood, Dr. Sherwen, and Horace WaIpole, are in the British Museum. In this work he maintained the antiquity of the poems, and committed himself to the assertion, when writing on the poem of the death of "Syr Charles Bawdin," that "a greater variety of internal proofs may be produced for its authenticity than for that of any other piece in the whole collection"
His ingenuous comments provoked replies from Edmund Malone, Thomas Tyrwhitt, and Thomas Warton, and a very severe "Archaelogical Epistle to Dean Milles," 1782, which, though long attributed to the poet Mason, was written by John Baynes [q.v.] On the dean's part, in this controversy S. T. Coleridge wrote that he "foully calumniated Chatterton, an owl mangling a poor dead nightingale," and that "though only a dean, he was in dulness and malignity most episcopally eminent." (John Cottle Early Recollections, i. 36)
Milles also wrote;
1. "Inscriptionum Antiquarum liber alter a Jeremia Milles et Richardo Pococke editus," 1752, printed as an appendix, pp. 100-127 of Pococke's work on the same subject.
2. "Observations on the Wardrobe Account for 1483, the Coronation; of Richard II1," 1770. This originally appeared in the Archaeologia," i. 361-83, and it produced from Horace Walpole "A Reply to the Observations of Dean Milles on the Ward Robe Account," 24 pages, of which six copies only, dated 28 Aug. 1770, were printed at Strawberry Hill.
3 "A Speech delivered to the Society of Antiquaries, 11 Jan, 1781, on their Removal to Somerset House," 1781. He also contributed numerous papers to the "Philosophical Transactions" and the "Archaeologia"
Milles library was sold by Leigh Sotheby on 10 April 1843 and four following days, when several of his manuscripts were acquired for the British Museum (cf. Bibl. Corn. and Boase, Collectanea Cornub,) Milles was the medium, on 9 May 1766, of the presentation of Pococke's Irish collections to the British Museum. His "Topographical Notes on Bath, Wells", &c. were printed from the original manuscript by T. G, Bell in 1851, in a series of tracts an British topography. In early life he made large collections for a history of Devonshire, and for illustrating the Domesday survey and the Danish coinage. Letters to and from him, are in Nichol's "Literary Anecdotes," iii. 295, vi. 297-9, viii. 10, and in the "Gentleman's Magazine" 1823, pt. pp. 327-8 he is frequently mentioned with keen dislike in Walpole's "Correspondence," and he was lashed with his brother antiquaries, by Foote in the comedy of the "Nabob."
A bust portrait of him, life size, with face seen, in three quarters, is in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries it was copied by Miss Black, by direction of the Earl of Leicester, from the original belonging to the family. A comical sketch by George Steevens of his Wig is in the "Gentleman's Magazine," 1782, p. 288.
[Gent. Mag. 1745 p. 276, 1784 pt. i pp. 153-234, 1786 pt. i. p. 480, 1823 pt. i. pp. 516-17; Foster's Alumni Oxon; Fowler's Corpus Christi Coll. (Oxford Hist. Soc.), pp. 282-33; Scharf's Cat. of Pictures, of Soc of Antiquaries, p., 41; Polwhele's Biog. Sketches, ii. 6-13; Le Neve's Fasti, i. 388, 413, 429, 431; Cotton's Fasti; Eccl. Hib. i. 23, 56; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. vols. i. and iii.; Hasted's Kent, iii, 410; Nichols's Lit, Anecd. ii. 657, iv. 471-3, v. 334, vi, 620-626; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. i, 707-8, vii, 460; Oliver's Bishops of Exeter, pp, 263-4; Manning and Bray's Surrey, ii, 261-4; Biog. of Bishop Richard Pococke in Tours in Scotland (Scottish Hist. Soc.), pp. xxxvi, 1x-1xvi; information from Mr. Arthur Burch, Diocesan Registry, Exeter.]
W.P.C.

Jeremiah is buried beside his wife, he was a Rector of St Edmund the King and Martyr.

Milles the Rev Jeremiah D.D. Dean of Exeter, the worthy Rector of this Parish was buried in the Rectors Vault Feb 19.
Ref: St Edmund the King and Martyr Deaths Register 1784.

Jeremiah married Edith POTTER [15910] [MRIN: 5686], daughter of John POTTER D.D. Archbishop of Canterbury [15911] and Elizabeth VENNER [15912], on 29 May 1745. (Edith POTTER [15910] was born in 1726, died on 11 Jun 1761 and was buried in St Edmund The King & Martyr Lombard St LND.)