THIRLWALL, CONNOP (1797-1875), English bishop and historian, was born at Stepney, London, on Jan. I I, 1797. He was educated at Charterhouse and at Trinity college, Cambridge. In October 1818 he was elected to a fellowship, and went for a year's travel on the Continent. On his return he settled down to study law, but without much zeal, and in 1827 he definitely abandoned law, and was ordained deacon. At Rome in 1819 he had fallen in with Bunsen, and since that time had been interested in German literature. He now joined with Hare in translating Niebuhr's His tory of Rome (1828). On Hare's departure from Cambridge in 1832, Thirlwall became assistant college tutor and was involved in the controversy upon the admission of Dissenters which arose in 1834. Thirlwall, in replying to objections by Thomas Turton, pointed out that no provision for theological instruction was in fact made by the colleges except compulsory attendance at chapel, and that this was mischievous. After this outburst he had to resign his position as assistant-tutor. Nevertheless he received from Lord Brougham the living of Kirby-under-Dale in Yorkshire. Then he began his History of Greece which has remained a standard work.
In 1840 Thirlwall was raised by Lord Melbourne to the see of St. David's. The great monument of his episcopate is the eleven famous charges in which he from time to time reviewed the position of the English Church with reference to pressing questions of the day—addresses at once judicial and statesman like, full of charitable wisdom and massive sense. Thirlwall was
one of the four prelates who refused to inhibit Bishop Colenso from preaching in their dioceses, and the only one who withheld his signature from the addresses calling upon Colenso to resign his see. He took the liberal side in the questions of Maynooth, of the admission of Jews to parliament, of the Gorham case, and of the educational conscience clause. He was the only bishop who voted for the disestablishment of the Irish Church.
During his latter years Thirlwall took great interest in the revision of the Authorized Version of the Bible, and was chairman of the revisers of the Old Testament. He resigned his see in May 1874, and retired to Bath, where he died on July 27, 1875. He lies in Westminster Abbey in the same grave as Grote.