Herring, Thomas

Herring, Thomas archbishop of Canterbury, was born in 1693 at Walsoken, Norfolk, of which his father was rector. He studied at Jesus and Bennet colleges, Cambridge, and was made fellow of Corpus Christi in 1716. After having possessed various livings, he was raised in 1737 to the see of Bangor, whence in 1743 he was translated to York. After the defeat of the king's troops at Preston Pans in 1745, the archbishop exerted himself in his diocese with so much patriotism and zeal that he repressed the disaffected, inspirited the desponding, and procured at a county meeting a subscription of £40;000 towards the defense of the country. His zeal for the Hanoverian cause procured him the facetious title of "the red Herring." In 1747 he was removed to the see of Canterbury, and he died at Croydon in 1756. Herring was a man of great celebrity as a preacher. His Sermons on Public Occasions were published in 1763 (Lond. 8vo), with a memoir of Herring by Duncombe; followed by his Letters to W. Duncome (1727, 12mo). See Biographica Britannica; Rich, Cyclop. of Biog.