11 Facts About Temple Stanyan

Temple Stanyan was an English civil servant, politician and author.

Temple Stanyan is most known for his Grecian History, first published in 1707, which became a standard work on the history of ancient Greece in the early part of the 18th century.

Temple Stanyan entered Westminster School in 1691 as a Queen's Scholar.

Temple Stanyan entered government service after leaving Oxford and by 1715 was under-secretary for the Northern Department.

Temple Stanyan transferred to the Southern Department as under-secretary in 1717, but he lost this position a year later.

Abraham Stanyan was a prominent member of the Kit Kat Club, as was his cousin Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham and some sources state Temple was a member.

Temple Stanyan condemns the democratic constitution of Classical Athens, claiming that it suffered from these failings.

Towards the end of the 18th century, Temple Stanyan's history was superseded by William Mitford's History of Greece, the five volumes of which were published, one by one, between 1783 and 1810.

Temple Stanyan made a contribution to a collaborative translation of Ovid's, Metamorphoses edited by Samuel Garth, that was published by Tonson in 1717.

Temple Stanyan translated The Story of Polyxena and Hecuba in Book XIII.

Temple Stanyan contributed to a 1726 collection of English and Latin poems on archery and the Royal Company of Archers and composed the Latin inscription on the plinth of John Michael Rysbrack's 1735 statue of George II at Greenwich Hospital.