Joseph Romilly (1791–1864) was an English academic administrator, known as a diarist.

Life

He was son of Thomas Peter Romilly of London, by his cousin Jane Anne, second daughter of Isaac Romilly, who was uncle of

Sir Samuel Romilly Sir Samuel Romilly (1 March 1757 – 2 November 1818), was a British lawyer, politician and legal reformer. From a background in the commercial world, he became well-connected, and rose to public office and a prominent position in Parliament. A ...

. He entered

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

, in 1809, became a scholar of the college, and graduated B.A. in 1813 as fourth wrangler. He was elected Fellow in 1815, and proceeded M.A. in 1816. He took holy orders, but he never held any preferment, except that he was rector of the family living of Porthkerry, Glamorgan, from 1830 to 1837,M. G. R. Morris, Romilly's Visits to Wales 1827-1854 (Gwasg Gomer, 1998), p. xviii. and chaplain to Thomas Musgrave,

Archbishop of York The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers th ...

, who had been a friend at Trinity. He belonged to the liberal party in the university, led by George Peacock and Adam Sedgwick, Romilly's intimate friend. In 1821 he joined the committee for promoting a subscription in the university to aid the Greeks in their

war of independence This is a list of wars of independence (also called liberation wars). These wars may or may not have been successful in achieving a goal of independence. List See also * Lists of active separatist movements * List of civil wars * List o ...

. He was one of the party who successfully opposed the petition which it was planned should be presented in 1829 against

Catholic emancipation Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...

. He opposed

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, then master of Trinity, on the question of

Connop Thirlwall Connop Thirlwall (11 January 1797 – 27 July 1875) was an English bishop (in Wales) and historian. Early life Thirlwall was born at Stepney, London, to Thomas and Susannah Thirlwall. His father was an Anglican priest who claimed descent from ...

's dismissal in 1834. On 23 March 1832 Romilly was elected registrary of the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

after a competition with

Temple Chevallier Temple Chevallier FRAS (19 October 1794 in Badingham, Suffolk – 4 November 1873 in Harrow Weald) was a British clergyman, astronomer, and mathematician. Between 1847 and 1849, he made important observations regarding sunspots. Chevall ...

, and remained in this office until 1861, when he retired. His major work as registrary was the arrangement and cataloguing of all the university papers. He died suddenly at Yarmouth, of heart disease, on Sunday 7 August 1864, and was buried in a vault in Christ Church, Barnwell.

Diary

From 1832 till his death Romilly kept a diary, which was used by the authors of the ''Life of Adam Sedgwick''; it contains nearly as much about Sedgwick as about its author. An edited version has been published as ''Romilly's Cambridge Diary, 1832–42: Selected Passages from the Diary of the Rev. Joseph Romilly, Fellow of Trinity College and Registrary of the University of Cambridge'' (2009), edited by John Patrick Tuer Bury. He also edited ''Graduati Cantabrigienses'', 1760–1856, which was published at Cambridge in 1856.

References

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Romilly, Joseph 1791 births 1864 deaths English diarists English male non-fiction writers 19th-century diarists