Zachariah Mudge was born in 1693 in Exeter of humble parentage. His father, also called Zachariah,was a carpenter, but died when he was very young. and his mother, Katherine, attnded women who were lying-in He attended Exeter’s free Grammar School and then the non-conformist Academy of Joseph Hallett III, where he trained as a Presbyterian minister He became a protege of a Mr George Trosse, who paid for his education, and, when he died, left him half his library, including books on Hebrew, in which language he became particularly proficient. On leaving the Academy, he got married, and needed an income to support a family so he became the usher or second master at Exeter Grammar School, which at that time was run by Sir Joshua Reynolds’ uncle, John Reynolds. He taught there for three years before taking up a post as headmaster of Bideford Grammar School, at the young age of 24. John Reynolds stated that he believed Mudge ‘to be perfectly well qualify’d thereto by an extraordinary knowledge of ye Greek and Latin tongues, & a person of great application and diligence in ye teaching of boys’.
Of course, the Grammar School then was a far cry from what it later became. It was situated where Bridge Buildings are today, and consisted of one classroom, with a dozen or so pupils in attendance, sponsored by local wealthy patrons, who saw some promise in them as scholars. Latin and Greek would indeed have been the order of the day. Mudge was by all accounts a successful headmaster, and among his pupils were John Shebbeare, the satirist, also from Bideford, and two of his own sons. His income, however, needed to be supplemented by the Bridge Trust. Whilst at the school he fell into a long correspondence with the Bishop of Exeter on matters of church doctrine. This resulted in his giving up his non-conformity and entering the Church of England, and having been ordained as an Anglican priest in 1729, was later that year appointed Vicar of Abbotsham as well as Headmaster of the Grammar School, which would further have augmented his income.
He decided then that the Church, and not teaching was his true vocation, and left Bideford in 1732, to become Vicar of St. Andrew’s in Plymouth, with a salary of £2000 per year, a princely sum in those days. He ended up as Prebendary of Exeter in 1736.
He was well-known for the quality of his sermons, and they were still recommended reading for students at Oxford fifty years later. He was a quiet, thoughtful man, of placid temperament, and upright character, well-liked by all who knew him, including Sir Joshua Reynolds, a fellow Devonian, who painted his portrait three times. He was loved as a preacher throughout the Westcountry.
When he was very young he fell passionately in love with a Mary( also known as Moll) Fox, but when she rejected him, he ran off to London in a state of despair intending to get aboard a ship, and leave England forever, but he was unable to to persuade any captain to take him, and spent his first night sleeping in a sugar barrel at the dockside, but nine days later he was home again, hungry, penniless and bedraggled. Four years later, however, aged 20, he actually married Mary Fox, and they had four sons and a daughter. He married again in 1762 an Elizabeth Neell, who outlived him by 20 years.
Zachariah died in 1769, at the age of 76, and is buried in Coffleet, Devon, where he died at the beginning of his annual visit to London.
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