William Shepherd (minister)

Under the supervision of his uncle, Tatlock Mather (died 1785), minister of a presbyterian (Unitarian) congregation at Rainford, near Prescot, William was successively educated: at Holden's academy near Rainford from 1776 to 1782; by Philip Holland from 1782 to 1785; at Daventry Academy from 1785 to 1788 under Thomas Belsham; and at New College, Hackney, from 1788 to 1790 under Belsham, Andrew Kippis, and Richard Price.

[9] There were other portraits by Cornelius Henderson (at Brougham Hall, 1844) and by Moses Haughton the younger (watercolour), in the possession of the Rev.

A fourth has been twice engraved, by Robert William Sievier, and by Thomson for the notice of Shepherd in the Imperial Magazine for April 1821.

[1] His interest in Italian literature, aroused by his friendship with William Roscoe, led to his publication in 1802 of a Life of Poggio Bracciolini, London, (2nd ed.

The Life was translated into French, German, and Italian, and on 10 July 1834 the senate of the University of Edinburgh conferred on him the degree of LL.D.

[10] Shepherd married in 1792 Frances, daughter of Robert Nicholson, merchant of Liverpool, and they moved into the old parsonage, "The Nook", Gateacre.

[11] On 17 November 1829 his wife died, and the management of his household passed to his adopted child, Hannah, the youngest daughter of his old friend Jeremiah Joyce.