Talk:John Boswell (clergyman)/GA1

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 11:45, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Comments

• Do we know his father's trade? We do know that he was of "a Gloucestershire family" ([2] Sutton).
  • Reply: Having searched, I have found no clear indication of who his father was. However, I have introduced the Gloucestershire ancestry as it appears in both editions of the ODNB referenced. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

• ministerially stationed ?
  • Done. Replaced with "assigned" ~ 18:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

• After attending Milton Abbey - hm, this is wikilinked to Milton Abbey School, founded 1954. Back in 1711 when Boswell was a boy, it's not clear what the Abbey might have been, given that it was closed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries like all the others. It may have been a ruin by then, but there's no indication it was a school. Perhaps there was a school in the village: the people were forcibly relocated from there when the Abbey buildings (ruinous or not) were demolished in 1771. Anyway the link seems a bit hard to justify here, and clarification would be useful.
  • Reply: I figured that the wikilinked article covered the same abbey building referenced in the ODNB, but your review and my own searching raises the quest of whether this is true. As an act of disambiguation, I note who Boswell studied under. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

• He or another John Boswell was called to the bar - hm, why are we mentioning this when we don't even know it's him? It seems slightly unlikely given that he seems to have been ordained rather soon afterwards, and at Oxford at that: do we know a) what he read at Oxford, and b) when he was ordained deacon? If the answers are "Theology" and "soon after graduating" we can certainly ditch the legal bit. Tho' I guess he might have done the bare minimum of law just in case his church career didn't work out! I note that [2] Sutton says "also ... prebendary", so it looks as if he stayed as vicar of Taunton the rest of his life.
  • Reply: It seems very plausible to me that this is our Boswell who was called to the bar. Other 18th- and 19th-century English clergymen were called to the bar at some regularity, particularly in the context of ecclesiastical law. My most recent GA was on William Winstanley Hull, a lay person who became a barrister specializing in ecclesiastical law. This doesn't mean he ever practiced law, but multiple sources seem

• You haven't said what his Cambridge MA was in: more theology? He was aged 34 and already Vicar of Taunton by then.
  • Reply: I haven't found a source that identifies what his MA is in. Frustratingly, the only information I can find is that he received his MA in 1732. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

• high churchman leanings -> "high church attitudes".
  • Done. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

• with the intent of comprehending Dissenters: which means what exactly?
  • Done: I've added a note containing the definition of comprehension in this context. Comprehension, frustratingly, often goes undefined in histories of this period due to it being commonly used as a synonym for inclusion until the last century. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

• Test Acts - a brief gloss on these is necessary for the general reader.
  • Done. Hard to summarize in any further detail without describing the various doctrinal statements of the Thirty-nine Articles.

• ... Thirty-nine Articles.[1] Charles I was popularly celebrated... - this is a sudden break in subject and tone. Suggest a new paragraph here, i.e. Church para; Royalist para.

• I think we need a brief chat about the content of The Case of the Royal Martyr. For example, what other works had attacked the King (who, when, why), and what was the drift of Boswell's reply? ([5] (eds Ward & Waller), actually James Anderson is the chapter author (please put that in the citation), makes it look as if there was a Scottish independence thread among the attackers?)
  • Done. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

• It looks as if he remained in Somerset for the rest of his life. Are there any details of his life there? For instance, why was he buried in Taunton not Wells? Did being a prebendary at Wells mean he gave up his benefice at Taunton and moved to Wells, or was it a sinecure? We seem to have nothing here but his publications.
  • Done. The 1908 book notes that he remained vicar at Taunton until 1756, a detail I have added. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

• Given the paucity of detail on the man, it might be as well to provide a brief annotation on the content of each of the Works listed, seeing as how they're all conveniently online. For example, Privileges contains the statement on page 8 "I shall beg Leave briefly to point to that dreadful Scene of Misery and Confusion which this Nation was involved in, in the Time of the great Rebellion; and then lay before you a short Sketch of that glorious happy Constitution, which, as on this Day, was restored to us in Church and State." Boswell seems to be comparing the Restoration of the Monarchy to "Recovery of the Ark from the Philistines" (page 7). It seems suggestive of character, at least, even if we can't speculate in public.
  • Done. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Images

• The one image is plausibly licensed on Commons. Shame there aren't any surviving portraits.

Sources

• The sources given are solid and reliable (despite the error documented in Note 1).

• I've added some suggestions for use of additional details from the sources above.

• The "External link" (should always be plural even if there's only one of it today...) mentions a lease by John Boswell (vicar) on 24 Jun 1754. The date at the top of the document, "1763-1919" is thus a misnomer. Perhaps a brief annotation would be helpful, or we could even move the thing into the main text as a brief fact.
  • Done: This is a legal record with no encyclopedic biographical information, so I don't feel comfortable mentioning it in the article. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Summary

• A fascinating short article on a spiky Englishman, that raises more questions than it answers. I don't have much objection to its becoming a bijou GA but it would definitely be helpful to flesh out some of the claims, and to add any small details of his life that can be found. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:28, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
  • Excellent comments, @Chiswick Chap: I'll be busy today and tomorrow but will try to give you a full implementation of fixes/replies by the end of the day UTC Friday! ~ Pbritti (talk) 19:08, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
    • I found additional information that challenges some the content of the Britannica article's statements, including about Boswell being unwed. I will share details within the next day, but I will likely need about 24 hours total to make the relevant fixes. ~ Pbritti (talk) 23:45, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

      Excellent. It'd be helpful if you could note 'Done' or something similar under each item when you've addressed it. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:06, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

      So here's where I'm running into a bit of trouble, @Chiswick Chap: I have no reason to believe that the ODNB (I mistakenly called it Britannica above; a different article was on the brain) is inaccurate. They do an excellent job verifying basic life details. However, in trying to flesh out the article, I was searching for books that may contain more information on Boswell. This eBay listing for a copy of The Church of St. Mary Magdalene Taunton remarkably includes an image of a page with details on Boswell (archived version). Distressingly, it describes Boswell as married–something that contradicts the dominant source I use in this article. Now, my gut says to discount this book–it's 116 years old and the idea of the very anti-Dissenter Boswell marrying the daughter of a leading Dissenter is somewhat outrageous. However, I can not in good faith completely ignore it. How do you suggest I deal with this situation? Other fixes to come with my apologies on their tardy character. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:36, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

      The minimum is to describe what each source says, i.e. Bloggs 1823 states that he was married, etc. Given the age of the source we can probably have an image on Commons... Chiswick Chap (talk) 03:20, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Ok, @Chiswick Chap: I've worked through your comments and, thanks to a new book I recently picked up, added some additional details. Unfortunately, some facts remain unclear. I favor retaining the detail regarding the possibility he was called to the bar, but could be convinced to remove it if you feel that a GA should not feature that uncertain detail. The material about the possible marriage has also been added. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.