John Colbatch

John Colbatch (1664–11 February 1748), sometimes Colbach, was an English churchman and academic, professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge. Drawn into the long legal struggle between Richard Bentley and the fellowship of Trinity College, Cambridge, he became a chief opponent and spent a short time in prison for a tactless court appearance.

Early life and career

Colbatch was the son of John Colbatch of Ludlow, Shropshire. He was educated at St. Peter's, Westminster, and was admitted as a scholar in 1680. He then proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1683. He became Fellow of his college, proceeding B.A. in 1686. On first taking orders he was appointed chaplain to the British factory at Lisbon, where he remained around seven years, and wrote, at the request of Gilbert Burnet, an Account of the State of Religion and Literature in Portugal for which he received promises of preferment from the bishop and from Queen Mary. He returned to England to prepare for Trinity College Gilbert Burnet the younger, the bishop's second son, and in 1701, by the good offices of Bentley, was selected by the Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, chancellor of Cambridge University, as tutor to his eldest son, the Earl of Hertford. After two years at Cambridge Colbatch was persuaded by the duke to travel on the Grand Tour two years more with his pupil, but in the end of the tour the duke suddenly quarrelled with him and dismissed him from his post, allowing him only his bare salary less expenses, and passing harsh reflections on his character.