Biography

John Allen Giles (1808-84), historian, editor and translator, was born on 26 October 1808 at Southwick House, in the parish of Mark, Somerset. Aged sixteen he entered Charterhouse as a Somerset scholar. From Charterhouse he was elected to a Bath and Wells scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in November 1824. In the Easter term of 1828 he obtained a double first class, and shortly afterwards graduated BA. He was awarded a Vinerian scholarship in 1830, and took his MA in 1831 and DCL in 1838. His election to a fellowship at Corpus on 15 November 1832 followed his college scholarship. He was ordained deacon in 1832 and priest in 1835, and held the curacy of Cossington, Somerset, jointly with the headship of Bridgwater School. His Scriptores Græci minores had been published in 1831, and his Latin Grammar in 1833. In 1834 he was appointed to the headmastership of Camberwell College School, and on 24 November 1836 was elected headmaster of the City of London School. In 1846 Giles became curate of Bampton, Oxfordshire, where he continued taking pupils, and edited and wrote many works. In 1857 took the curacy, with sole charge, of Perivale in Middlesex and in 1861 he became curate of Harmondsworth, but resigned after a year and went to live at Cranford, where he took pupils, subsequently moving to Ealing. In 1867 he bought the living of Sutton in Surrey, which he held for seventeen years. He died at the rectory there on 24 September 1884 and was buried at Churchill, Somerset.

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