John Whalley (1699 – 12 December 1748) was an English academic at the University of Cambridge, clergyman, and poet.
Whalley was the son of John Whalley, Rector of Riddlesworth, Norfolk.[1]
He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, matriculating in 1715, graduating B.A. 1720, M.A. 1723, B.D. 1732, D.D. 1737 (from Peterhouse). He was appointed a Fellow of Pembroke College in 1721, Taxor in 1730, and served as Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge 1733–48, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge 1738–39, and Regius Professor of Divinity 1742–48.
Ordained deacon in 1724 and priest in 1725, he held the following livings in the church:
Whalley was also a poet, who composed Cuddy, why sitten wee thus mute, ne cast (1738), a rustic elegy for Queen Caroline imitating the style of Edmund Spenser.[2] Whalley was Master of Peterhouse when the poet Thomas Gray was a student then a Fellow there; Gray wrote that Whalley hated him, and had described him publicly as "a kind of atheist".[3]
Whalley married Mary Squire, daughter of Francis Squire, Chancellor of Wells Cathedral. They had the following children:[1]