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.
From 1763 till 1784 he was classical and philological tutor in the Coward Trust's academy[2] at Hoxton, and subsequently in the New College at Hackney.
He contributed largely to The Gentleman's Magazine, The Monthly Review and The Library; and he established the New Annual Register.
This was first published in London in 1788[4] and includes a letter by Kippis to George III of the United Kingdom dated 13 June 1788.