TrinityCollegeChoir

Michael Hutchinson

Died 1730.

Michael Hutchinson entered Trinity as a pensioner in November 1682.  He was a scholar in 1685, and graduated BA the following year.  He gained a fellowship in 1689, and took his MA in 1690, BD in 1701 and DD in 1706. In 1707 he contributed £30 towards the repair and beautification of Trinity Chapel.

He was incorporated into the Church of England in 1700, at Oxford, and became Vicar of Orwell in Cambridgeshire in 1701.  He was a a prebendary of Lichfield Cathedral in 1705-7, and again in 1713-30.  He was also Rector of Cheadle, Staffordshire, from 1713.

Hutchinson's preferment to the prebendal stall at Lichfield became a weapon in the armoury of Richard Bentley against the fellowship.  Bentley, as Master, resurrected a long-neglected statute concerning the absence of Fellows from the College, and Hutchinson was threatened with expulsion.  He was saved by the Society, at the cost of their pride and of £350 which they grudgingly agreed could be paid for the grand new staircase in the Master's Lodge, which Bentley had had built against their wishes.

Venn / Monk