Bishop Hugh Gore

The eldest son of John Gore, archdeacon of Lismore and a relative of the earls of Arran, Hugh Gore was born at Maiden Newton, Dorset. He was sent to school at Lismore in Ireland, and thence proceeded to Trinity College, Oxford, where he matriculated 20 June 1628. He left Oxford after a few terms and went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he ultimately graduated D.D. His first preferments are believed to have been the living of Nicholaston and the rectory of Oxwich, both in Gower, which he owed to the patronage of the Mansel family; but he would appear to have left Oxwich in 1638 (T. Richards, Religious Developments in Wales, 1654-1662, p. 495). Ejected under the Propagation Act of 1650 for 'delinquency and refusing the engagement', he kept a school at Swansea for some years subsequently. After the Restoration he received preferment in Ireland, becoming Bishop of Waterford and Lismore in 1666. Gore retired to Swansea to live in 1689 and was buried in St. Mary's church there on 27 March 1691.

No monument has been erected to this truly pious benevolent and single-hearted man, either at Waterford, Lismore, or Swansea; it was perhaps considered that the line

“Si quaeris momentum circumspice”

would apply in his case, and that his good works would prove of more lasting record, than tablets of marble.

Sources

Dictionary of Welsh Biography

The free grammar school, Swansea, with brief memoirs of its founder and masters and copies of original deeds, by George Grant Francis