Addison, Lancelot

Lancelot Addison was born at Crosby Ravensworth, Westmoreland, in 1632. He was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, and divided his time between Oxford and retirement until the Restoration. Following the Restoration, he served as chaplain to the garrison at Dunkirk, and later accepted a similar chaplaincy post at Tangier in 1663. In 1670, he was appointed Chaplain in Ordinary to the King, and shortly thereafter became Rector of Milston, Wiltshire, as well as a Prebendary in Salisbury Cathedral. He was ultimately preferred to the Deanery of Lichfield in 1683, a role he held until his death in 1703.

The father of essayist and hymn writer Joseph Addison, Lancelot Addison published several prose works alongside a collection of devotional verse. His main poetic contribution, Devotional Poems, Festival and practical, on some of the chief Christian Festivals, Fasts, Graces, and Virtues, &c., was published in London by Henry Bonwick in 1699.