Transcript

Of

Rev. William Emmanuel Pryke, M.A. [Obituary]

Trans. Devon. Assoc. vol. 52, (1920), p. 45.

by

Maxwell Adams (Ed.)

Prepared by Michael Steer

The Obituary was read at the Association’s July 1920 Totnes meeting. An inscription on a monument in the South Choir Aisle of Exeter Cathedral to the memory of Chancellor and Canon William E. Pryke may be accessed here. There are numerous references to his friendship with Rev and Mrs Pryke, as incumbents of the vicarage of Ottery St Mary, in the Diaries of Sir Ernest Satow (1906-11). This obituary, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

The Rev. W. E. Pryke, who was Canon and Chancellor of Exeter Cathedral, was born in Cambridgeshire, the eldest child of a large family and its last survivor. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was a foundation scholar and Naden Divinity Student, and ordained to a curacy at Stapleford, Cambridge, in 1867. For twenty-one years he was Headmaster of Lancaster School, and in 1893 he went to Devon as Rector of Marwood. He held the living for seven years and that of Ottery St. Mary for eight years, being appointed a Canon of Exeter in 1908 and Chancellor in 1915. He was a Proctor in Convocation of Canterbury from 1906 till 1918, and was Select Preacher Cambridge University in 1873, 1887, and 1912.
He joined the Devonshire Association as a Life Member in 1894.
Chancellor Pryke was twice married. His first wife, Ellen, the eldest daughter of Mr. John Collier, died in 1873, having only lived one year after their marriage. In 1883 he married a second time Harriet Mary, younger daughter of Dr. George Adams of Clifton, who, with their only child the Rev. W. Maurice Pryke, vicar of Bradninch, survives him.
Chancellor Pryke died on the 1st February, 1920, in the 77th year of his age.