John Harmar

John Harmar (also Harmer) (1594?–1670) was an English cleric and academic, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford from 1650.

Life A nephew of John Harmar the scholar, he was born at Churchdown, near Gloucester, about 1594, and was educated at Winchester College. He obtained a demyship at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1610, at the age of 16; graduated B.A. 15 December 1614, and M. A. 18 June 1617, and took holy orders.

In 1617 Harmar was appointed usher at Magdalen College School; disputes seem to have arisen between him and the head-master, and Peter Heylyn, who was then at the college, notes in his diary that Harmar was a subject of mockery. In 1626 he obtained the mastership of the free school at St. Albans. While he was there the king visited the school, and his pupils recited three orations on the occasion. He held other scholastic offices, among them the under-mastership at Westminster School, and supplicated for the degree of M.B. on 4 July 1632. In 1659, also, through the intervention of Richard Cromwell, he was presented by the university to the donative rectory of Ewhurst, Hampshire. On the Restoration of 1660 he lost both his professorship and his rectory, and retired to Steventon in Berkshire, supported mainly by his wife's jointure.