The Reverend James Boyer (1736–1814) was the tyrannical headmaster of

Christ's Hospital Christ's Hospital is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. The school was founded in 1552 and received its first royal charter in 1553 ...

from the years 1778 to 1799.

Reputation

These years at the end of the 18th century were when three of the school's most famous students attended:

Leigh Hunt James Henry Leigh Hunt (19 October 178428 August 1859), best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist and poet. Hunt co-founded '' The Examiner'', a leading intellectual journal expounding radical principles. He was the centr ...

Charles Lamb Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his ''Essays of Elia'' and for the children's book ''Tales from Shakespeare'', co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764–18 ...

, and

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poe ...

. Boyer's personality was immortalized in the writing of all three authors. Hunt made several references to Boyer in his autobiography, Lamb wrote of him in his two essays concerning his time at Christ's Hospital, and Coleridge referred to him in his ''

Biographia Literaria The ''Biographia Literaria'' is a critical autobiography by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published in 1817 in two volumes. Its working title was 'Autobiographia Literaria'. The formative influences on the work were Wordsworth's theory of poetry, th ...

''. Through the work of these three authors in particular Boyer gained a reputation for capricious and unpredictable brutality. Most famously, Boyer knocked one of Hunt's teeth out by throwing a heavy copy of Homer at his head from across the room. Lamb wrote this about the arbitrary violence of Boyer: The arbitrary nature of Boyer's tyranny is illustrated in a story Hunt tells of a boy referred to simply as C__ with whom the master took “every opportunity to be severe with him, nobody knew why. Boyer is also credited with much of the achievement of the students at the school. Coleridge, in particular, praised Boyer's influence concerning his approach to poetics. According to Hunt, when Coleridge learned that Boyer was on his death-bed, he said “it was lucky that the cherubim who took him to heaven were nothing but faces and wings, or he would infallibly have flogged them by the way.”

Sources

* ''Autobiography'' by Leigh Hunt, 2 volumes, E.P. Dutton & Company, New York, 1903. * ''Biogrphia Literaria'' by Samuel Coleridge, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1884 * ''Everybody's Lamb'' by Charles Lamb, (A.C. Ward d.G. Bell & Sons, London, 1933. {{DEFAULTSORT:Boyer, James Headmasters of Christ's Hospital 1736 births 1814 deaths