Andrew Kippis (28 March 17258 October 1795) was an English nonconformist clergyman and biographer.
Life
The son of Robert Kippis, a silk-hosier, he was born at
Nottingham. Having gone to Carre's Grammar School in
Sleaford,
Lincolnshire he passed aged 16 to the Dissenting academy at
Northampton, of which Dr
Philip Doddridge was then president. In 1746 Kippis became minister of a church at Boston; in 1750 he moved to Dorking, Surrey; and in 1753 he became pastor of a
Presbyterian congregation at
Westminster, where he remained till his death.
Kippis took a prominent part in the affairs of his church. From 1763 till 1784 he was classical and philological tutor in the Coward Trust's academy[ Encyclopædia Americana, 1835, article on Kippis] at Hoxton, and subsequently in the New College at Hackney. In 1778 he was elected a fellow of the Antiquarian Society, and a fellow of the Royal Society in 1779.
Works
Kippis was a voluminous writer. He contributed largely to
The Gentleman's Magazine,
The Monthly Review and
The Library; and he established the
New Annual Register. He published sermons and pamphlets; and he prefixed a life to Nathaniel Lardner's
Works (1788). He wrote a life prefixed to Philip Doddridge's
Exposition of the New Testament (1792). His major work is his edition of the
Biographia Britannica; he only lived to publish five volumes (folio, 1778–1793).
In this work he had the assistance of
Joseph Towers,
[Notice by Abraham Rees, New Annual Register for 1795.] minister of Newington Green Unitarian Church.
One of the works by Kippis is Cook's Voyages. This was first published in London in 1788[See Hocken, Bibliography of New Zealand Literature, 1909] and includes a letter by Kippis to George III of the United Kingdom dated 13 June 1788. The book has accounts of the three voyages – 1768–1771, 1772–1775, and 1776–1779 – as well as an account of the character of James Cook, the effects of his voyages, and a commentary on his services.
See also
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