Bagot, Lewis 1740-1802, bishop, was seventh son of Sir Walter Bagot, bart., and brother of the first Lord Bagot. Born 1 Jan. 1741, he was educated at Westminster, although not on the foundation, was with his brother a schoolfellow of Cowper, was sent to the university of Oxford, and was appointed a canoneer student of Christ Church. He wrote verses in 1761—printed among the Oxford poems—on the death of George II and accession of George III. There is loyalty, but no inspiration, in them. Being very fragile in health, he removed to Lisbon. On his return, considerably invigorated, he proceeded M.A. 23 May 1764. Having been admitted to holy orders, he was presented to the rectory of Jevington, and also of Rye, Sussex. Prior to this he had been made canon of Christ Church in the place of Moore, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1771. In this year he married a Miss Hay, niece of the Earl of Kinnoul, and sister of Dr. Hay, of Christ Church. He proceeded Doctor of Civil Laws in 1772, and was installed in the deanery of Christ Church 25 Jan. 1777, on which he resigned his two livings. Dr. Bagot was consecrated bishop of Bristol 23 Feb. 1782, and held his deanery in commendam with the see, until his translation to Norwich in 1783. In March 1790 the good bishop was further translated to St. Asaph. He rebuilt the palace. Amiable, gentle, benevolent, humble, and laborious, he lived on intimate terms with his clergy and the common people.
     His Warburtonian Lecture of 1780 on the Prophecies is his only book. In 1781 he received the thanks of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge for a gift of fifty copies of Dr. Barrow's Doctrine of the Sacraments, which he had reprinted. The tract still remains on the society's lists. Through the same society he published a tractate on the Errors of the Anabaptists (first printed at Reading 1776). He died in London 4 June 1802, but was buried at St. Asaph. His portrait, by Hoppner, is in Christ Church hall.

Sources:
     Memoirs of the Bagot Family, 85
     Catal. of Oxford Graduates
     Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford, iii. 443, Appendix, 330
     Nichols's Lit. Hist. v. 630
     Santley's Confer. v. 114
     Barret's Hist. of Bristol, 338-9
     Gent. Mag. xli. 379, lxxxiii. 96
     Alumni Westmonasterienses, 34, 351-2.

Contributor: A. B. G. [Alexander Balloch Grosart]

Published: 1885