IRELAND, JOHN: Church of England, dean of Westminster; b. at Ashburton (20 m. n.e. of Plymouth), England, Sept. 8, 1761; d. at Westminster Sept. 2, 1842. He studied at the free grammar-school of Asbburton, and at Oriel College, Oxford (B.A., 1783; M.A., 1810; B.D. and D.D., 1810). After serving a small curacy near Ashburton for a short period, he traveled on the continent as private tutor; was vicar of Croydon, and reader and chaplain to the earl of Liverpool, 1793-1816; held a prebend in Westminster Abbey, 1802; became subdean as well as theological lecturer, 1806; and dean, 1816. He was rector at Islip in Oxfordshire, and dean of the Order of the Bath, 1816-35. Acquiring considerable wealth, he used it with great generosity, founding scholarships at Oxford and prizes at Westminster School, and furthering free education. He held the crown at the coronations of George IV. and William IV. He left sums for a new church at Westminster, and for a new professorship at Oxford. He was the author of Five Discourses, containing certain Arguments for and against the Reception of Christianity by the ancient Jews and Greeks (London, 1796); Paganism and Christianity Compared, in a Course of Lectures to the King’s Scholars at Westminster, in the Years 1806-07-08 (1809); and The Plague of Marseilles in . . . 1720 (1834).