Jonathan Toup - Later Years

Later Years

On 14 May 1774, when Toup was more than sixty years old, he was appointed by Bishop Keppel to a prebendal stall at Exeter and was admitted on 29 July 1776 to the vicarage of St. Merryn, the parish in which he had been partly educated. These preferments he held, with his rectory, to his death.

For some years before his death, Toup's mental capacity was diminished, and he was cared for by his half-sister Ann and her three daughters. He died at St. Martin's rectory on 19 January 1785 and was buried under the communion table of the church. His property was left to his nephew John Toup Nicolas.

A small marble tablet was erected to his memory on the south wall of the church by his niece Phillis Blake. The tablet states that the excellence of Toup's scholarship was "known to the learned throughout Europe." The inscription on a round brass plate beneath the tablet records that the cost was defrayed by the delegates of the Oxford University Press.

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