Hugh Todd

Hugh Todd (c.1657–1728) was an English cleric and academic, known also as an antiquarian and author.

Life Born at Blencow, Cumberland, about 1658, he was son of Thomas Todd, rector of Hutton in the Forest, who was ejected by parliamentary sequestrators and imprisoned at Carlisle. On 29 March 1672, he matriculated at The Queen's College, Oxford, graduating B.A. On 4 July 1677, and becoming taberdar of the college. In the following year, on 23 December, he was elected a fellow of University College. He proceeded M.A. on 2 July 1679, and accumulated the degrees of B.D. and D.D. on 12 December 1692.

In 1684, Todd became vicar of Kirkland in Cumberland, but resigned the charge on being installed a prebendary of the see of Carlisle on 4 October 1685. In 1685, he was collated to the vicarage of Stanwix in the same county, which he resigned in 1688, on becoming rector of Arthuret, presented by Richard Graham, 1st Viscount Preston. In 1699, he was also appointed vicar of Penrith.

In 1702, William Nicolson became bishop of Carlisle. From early in his episcopate, he clashed with Todd, who was uncompromising. After several minor disputes, in one of which Todd made his curate a churchwarden, Todd, with the dean Francis Atterbury, undertook to defend the chapter against the bishop, who exhibited articles of inquiry against them. Todd denied the right of visitation to the bishop, declaring that it belonged to the crown. For this conduct, he was first suspended and then excommunicated by Nicolson, but continued to officiate in his parish as priest, ignoring the bishop's action.

Todd died in Penrith on 6 October 1728. He translated "How a Man may be Sensible of his Progress in Virtue", for Plutarch's Morals, translated from the Greek by several hands (1684), and the life of Phocion for The Lives of Illustrious Men, written in Latin by Cornelius Nepos, and done into English by several hands (Oxford, 1684).

Family Todd married in 1700 Lucy Dalston (d. 1733), eldest daughter of Christopher Dalston. he was a son of Sir Thomas Hope, 8th Baronet, a Jacobite who saw the Battle of Culloden, and died in 1769, and was also painted by Ramsay.