Early Life and Education
The sixth of seven children of Daniel and Henrietta Malthus, Thomas Robert Malthus grew up in The Rookery, a country house near Westcott in Surrey. Petersen describes Daniel Malthus as "a gentleman of good family and independent means... a friend of David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau". The young Malthus received his education at home in Bramcote, Nottinghamshire, and then at the Dissenting Warrington Academy. He entered Jesus College, Cambridge in 1784. There he took prizes in English declamation, Latin and Greek, and graduated with honours, Ninth Wrangler in mathematics. He took the MA degree in 1791, and was elected a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge two years later. In 1797, he took orders and in 1798 became an Anglican country curate at Okewood near Albury in Surrey.
His portrait, and descriptions by contemporaries, present him as tall and good-looking, but with a cleft lip and palate. The cleft palate affected his speech: such birth defects had occurred before amongst his relatives. Malthus apparently refused to have his portrait painted until 1833 because of embarrassment over the cleft lip.
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