ARCHDEACON PALEY.
Their son was William Paley, Archdeacon of Carlisle and author of "Evidences of Christianity." Born in 1744 he went to Christ's College at the age of fifteen, with a Burton Exhibition and received a Carr Scholarship, when he entered. As a boy he had been a fair scholar with eccentric habits. His great delight was in cock-fighting and he must have looked forward to each Potation Day, March 12, with considerable joy. There are many anecdotes about him. He is supposed, whilst in company with his father riding on his way to Cambridge to have fallen off his horse seven times, whereupon his father would merely call out "take care of thy money, lad." His mind was always original, indeed he was never regarded as a "safe" man and in consequence he did not attain that high position in the Church that his intellectual achievements entitled him to expect. When about to take his B.A. degree he proposed to write a thesis on "Aeternitas pœnarum contradicit divinis attributis," but the Master of Christ's was so distressed that Paley was induced to appease him by the insertion of a "non." In 1765 he gained the Member's Prize as Senior Bachelor with a Latin essay which had long English notes. One of the examiners condemned it, because "he supposed the author had been assisted by his father, some country clergyman, who having forgotten his Latin had written the notes in English." Powell, the Master of S. John's, a learned doctor and the oracle of Cambridge on every question concerning subscription to the faith, spoke warmly in its favour "it contained more matter than was to be found in all the others ... it would be unfair to reject such a dissertation on mere suspicion, since the notes were applicable to the subject and shewed the author to be a young man of the most promising abilities and extensive reading." This opinion turned the balance in Paley's favour (Baker's History of S. John's). It also justified the father's opinion of his son. For when the younger Paley went to Cambridge, his father exclaimed that he would be "a great man, a very great man: for he has by far the cleverest head I ever met with in my life." He became Senior Wrangler.
The highest position he attained in the Church was the Archdeaconry of Carlisle, though he could have become Master of S. John's College, Cambridge, if an University life had attracted him, but it never did. He had left it, while quite young, to become Rector of Musgrave, Cumberland, at £80 a year. In 1805 he died, Giggleswick's most distinguished son.
William Paley was soon to discover the nature of the Governing Body. Charles Nowell, one of the kin of the second founder, was confined in Lancaster Gaol for some offence which is not recorded and there results a neat little comedy:
April 25, 1745.
Willm. Banks, of Feizer, elected in the room of Charles Nowell, of Capleside (now being and having been long confined in Lancaster Gaol) having in the presence of us taken the accustomed oath.
Antho. Lister.
May 20, 1745.
Be it remembered that the said William Banks on the said twenty-fifth day of April, having some doubt within himself whether he was legally elected, the above-named Charles Nowell not having resigned, he did not take the oath required by the Statutes of the ffree School of Giggleswick but on this day, being satisfied that his election was legal, he took the said oath before us (the Vicar and other Governors withdrawing themselves).