Life

The son of Charles Wheler of Charing, Kent, colonel in the Life Guards

Life Guards

Life Guards may refer to several military regiments:*Life Guards *Life Guards *Russian Imperial Guard*Garde du Corps , during the Ancien Régime...

, by his wife Anne, daughter of John Hutchin of Egerton, Kent

Egerton, Kent

Egerton is a village and civil parish in the Ashford District of Kent, England. The village is located on the Greensand Ridge 9 miles north of Ashford. The parish is a scattered rural one; the settlement of Stonebridge Green, adjacent to Egerton, is also in the parish.The 13th century parish...

, he was born at Breda

Breda

Breda is a municipality and a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. The name Breda derived from brede Aa and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. As a fortified city, the city was of strategic military and political significance...

 in Holland, where his parents, who were Royalist

Royalist

A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of government, but not necessarily a particular monarch...

s, were in exile. He was educated at a school in Wye, Kent and Lincoln College, Oxford

Lincoln College, Oxford

Lincoln College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is situated on Turl Street in central Oxford, backing onto Brasenose College and adjacent to Exeter College...

, matriculating on 31 Jan. 1667. He was created M.A. on 26 March 1683, and D.D. by diploma on 18 May 1702. In 1671 he became a student at the Middle Temple

Middle Temple

The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...

.

In October 1673 he set out for a tour in France, Switzerland, and Italy, and was at first accompanied by George Hickes

George Hickes

George Hickes was an English divine and scholar.-Biography:Hickes was born at Newsham, near Thirsk, Yorkshire, in 1642...

, his tutor at Lincoln College. While in Italy he received some instruction in antiquities from Jean-Foy Vaillant; and at Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, in June 1675, met Jacob Spon, with whom he travelled in Greece and the Levant in 1675 and 1676. Spon published a separate account of the journey in 1678 Wheler's account, A Journey into Greece, was published in 1682. Among the places visited and described by Wheler were Zante, Delos

Delos

The island of Delos , isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos, is one of the most important mythological, historical and archaeological sites in Greece...

, Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

, Prusa ad Olympum, Thyatira

Thyatira

Thyateira is the name of the modern Turkish city of Akhisar . The name comes from Koine Greek "Θυάτειρα" . The Turkish equivalent of Thyateira is Tepe Mezarligi. It lies in the far west of Turkey, south of Istanbul and almost due east of Athens...

, Ephesus

Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...

, Delphi

Delphi

Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...

, Corinth

Corinth

Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...

, and Attica

Attica

Attica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...

. He gave an account of the antiquities of Athens, and brought home marbles and inscriptions. He made considerable use of coins in his book, and paid attention to botany. He brought home plants that had not been cultivated in Britain, including a Hypericum

Hypericum

Hypericum is a genus of about 400 species of flowering plants in the family Hypericaceae ....

. The botanists John Ray

John Ray

John Ray was an English naturalist, sometimes referred to as the father of English natural history. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after "having ascertained that such had been the practice of his family before him".He published important works on botany,...

, Robert Morison

Robert Morison

Robert Morison was a Scottish botanist and taxonomist. A forerunner of John Ray, he elucidated and developed the first systematic classification of plants.-Life:...

, and Leonard Plukenet

Leonard Plukenet

Leonard Plukenet was an English botanist, Royal Professor of Botany and gardener to Queen Mary. Plukenet published Phytographia in four parts in which he described and illustrated rare exotic plants. It is a copiously illustrated work of more than 2 700 figures and is frequently cited in books...

 received rare plants from Wheler.

Wheler returned to England in November 1676. On 1 September 1682 he received a knighthood. About 1683 he took holy orders. In 1684 he received a canonry in Durham Cathedral

Durham Cathedral

The Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Durham is a cathedral in the city of Durham, England, the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Durham. The Bishopric dates from 995, with the present cathedral being founded in AD 1093...

, and from 1685 to 1702 was vicar of Basingstoke

Basingstoke

Basingstoke is a town in northeast Hampshire, in south central England. It lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon. It is southwest of London, northeast of Southampton, southwest of Reading and northeast of the county town, Winchester. In 2008 it had an estimated population of...

, Hampshire

Hampshire

Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...

. In 1706 he was promoted to the rectory of Winston

Winston, County Durham

Winston is a village in County Durham, England. It is situated a few miles to the west of Darlington.The nearby bridge over the River Tees also once held claim to being the biggest single stone arch bridge in Europe....

, and in 1709 to the rectory of Houghton-le-Spring

Houghton-le-Spring

Houghton-le-Spring is part of the City of Sunderland in the county of Tyne and Wear, North East England that has its recorded origins in Norman times. It is situated almost equidistant between the cathedral city of Durham 7 miles to the south-west and the centre of the City of Sunderland about 6...

 (where he founded and endowed a school for girls) both in County Durham

County Durham

County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...

. He died at Durham, after a short illness, on 15 January 1723, and was buried in the galilee

Galilee

Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...

 of Durham Cathedral.

Works

Wheler published:

• ‘A Journey into Greece,’ London, 1682, with illustrations; French translation, Amsterdam, 1689.
• ‘Account of Churches and Places of Assembly of the Primitive Christians,’ 1689.
• ‘The Protestant Monastery; or Christian Œconomicks, containing Directions for the Religious Conduct of a Family’ [London], 1698.

Legacy

Wheler bequeathed his Greek and Latin manuscripts to Lincoln College, and his dried plants, arranged in four volumes, to the University of Oxford, to which in 1683 he had presented marbles and antiquities brought from Greece. He left his coins (English, Greek, and Roman) to the Dean and chapter of Durham. By his will he secured a provision for the minister officiating at the chapel in Spital Fields, built in 1693, chiefly at his own expense. This building, formerly known as Wheler Chapel, was modernised in 1842, as St. Mary's, Spital Square. Wheler had considerable property in Spital Fields and Westminster

Westminster

Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...

, and estates in Hampshire and Kent. In 1692 he purchased the ancient archiepiscopal palace at Charing, Kent.

Family

Wheler married Grace, daughter of Sir Thomas Higgons of Grewel, near Odiham

Odiham

Odiham is a historic village and large civil parish in the Hart district of Hampshire, England. It is twinned with Sourdeval in the Manche Department of France. The current population is 4,406. The parish contains an acreage of 7,354 acres with 50 acres of land covered with water. The nearest...

, Hampshire, and had with her a family of eighteen children. Granville Wheler

Granville Wheler

-Life:He was third son of Sir George Wheler, born in August 1701, and was educated in Durham. He was admitted to Christ's College, Cambridge in 1717, graduating B.A. in 1721. He was Fellow of Christ's 1722–4, and graduated M.A. in 1724...

was the third son.