Warton, Thomas, 1688?-1745

Thomas Warton, the elder, son of Anthony Warton, was born at Godalming in about 1688. He was educated at Hart Hall and Magdalen College, Oxford. From 1718 to 1728 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford and afterwards became rector of Basingstoke and master of the town's grammar school. He died at Basingstoke in September 1745. His elder son, Joseph, literary critic and classical scholar, was responsible for the posthumous publication, in 1748, of some of Warton's poetry under the title of Poems on several occasions, and his younger son, Thomas, was poet laureate, from 1785 to 1790.

From the guide to the To the late Queen as she went to Bath, apparently by Thomas Warton, 18th century, (GB 206 Leeds University Library)