James Ussher

James Ussher (also spelled Usher) (1581-1656), born on January 4, 1581, in Dublin, Ireland into a well-to-do Anglo-Irish family, was a priest who sided with King Charles during the English Civil War. He is also noted for the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar[?] which dated creation from 4004 BC.

He entered the newly founded (1591) Trinity College Dublin on January 9, 1594, graduated in 1600 and received a Master's degree in 1601. In 1602, he was ordained in the Trinity College Chapel as Deacon and Priest by his uncle, the Archbishop of Armagh.

He went on to become a fellow and Professor of Theology. In 1621 he was appointed Bishop of Meath[?] in Ireland, and in 1625 King James made him Archbishop of Armagh. In 1640 he came to England and remained there after the Irish rising of 1641 prevented him from returning home. Though courted by Parliament, he sided with the king during the Civil War.

A remarkably talented scholar (if somewhat boring writer) he died in England in 1656.

The other contributor to the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar was John Lightfoot (1602-1675), Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University.

See also: Estimates of the date of Creation

External links and references

• A bibliography of his works, along with a list of secondary sources is available at: http://www.ucc.ie/acad/classics/CNLS/bibliography/ussherbibl.html
• James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh by R. Buck Knox, University of Wales Press, 1967