Lancelot Addison

Lancelot Addison (1632 – 20 April 1703) was an English writer and Church of England clergyman. He was born at Crosby Ravensworth[1] in Westmorland. He was educated at the Queen's College, Oxford.

Addison worked at Tangier as a chaplain for seven years and upon his return he wrote "West Barbary, or a Short Narrative of the Revolutions of the Kingdoms of Fez and Morocco", (1671).

In 1670 he was appointed royal chaplain or Chaplain in Ordinary to the King,[1] shortly thereafter Rector of Milston, Wilts (from 1670 to 1681), and Prebendary in the Cathedral of Salisbury.[1] In 1681 Milston Rectory burnt down.[2] In 1683 he became Dean of Lichfield, and in 1684 Archdeacon of Coventry.

Among his other works was "The Present State of the Jews" (1675), a detailed study of the Jewish population of the Barbary Coast in the seventeenth century, their customs, and their religious behaviour.[3] Scholars have pointed out that part of Addison's book simply repeats material found in the English translation of Johannes Buxtorf's work Synagoga Judaica: The Jewish Synagogue, or an Historical Narration of the State of the Jewes (London, 1657).[4]

He died in 1703 leaving three sons, the essayist Joseph Addison (1672–1719, eldest child), Gulston Addison, who became Governor of Madras, and the scholar Lancelot Addison (1680–1710), and two daughters: Dorothy Addison (1674–1750) and Anne Addison (1676-Unknown).

Addison was buried in Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire.