For the actor, see John Horsley (actor).
John Horsley (c. 1685-12 January, 1732) was a British archaeologist famous for his book Britannia Romana. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastleblank">http://www.seaham.i12.com/myers/m-horsley.htmlhttp://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0075-4358(1932)22%3C161%3AJH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G.
John Hodgson, the historian of Northumberland, in a short memoir published in 1831, held that Horsley was born in 1685, at _Pinkie House, in the parish of Inveresk, Midlothian, and that his father was a Northumberland Nonconformist, who had migrated to Scotland, but returned to England soon after the Revolution of 1688. J. H. Hinde, in the Archaeologia Aeliana of February 1865, held that he was a native of Newcastle-on-Tyne, the son of Charles Horsley, a member of the Tailors' Company of that town. He was educated at Newcastle, and at Edinburgh University, where he graduated MA on 29 April, 1701. There is evidence that he "was settled in Morpeth as a Presbyterian minister as early as 1709." Hodgson, however, thought that up to 1721, at which time he was residing at Widdrington, "he had not received ordination, but preached as a licentiate."
Even if he was ordained then, his stay at the latter place was probably prolonged beyond that date; for he communicated to the Philosophical Transactions notes on the rainfall there in the years 1722 and 1723. Hinde shows that during these years "he certainly followed secular employment as agent to the York Buildings Company, who had contracted to purchase and were then in possession of the Widdrington estates." At Morpeth Horsley opened a private school. Respect for his character and abilities attracted pupils irrespective of religious connection, among them Newton Ogle, afterwards dean of Westminster. He gave lectures on mechanics and hydrostatics in Morpeth, Alnwick and Newcastle, and was elected FRS on 23 April, 1730.
It is as an archaeologist that Horsley is now known. His great work, Britannia Romana, or The Roman Antiquities of Britain was published in 1732, one of the scarcest and most valuable of its class, containing the result of patient labor. There is in the British Museum a copy with notes by John Ward, biographer of the Gresham professors. Horsley died of apoplexy on 12 January 1732, on the eve of the publication of the Britannia Romana. He also published two sermons and a handbook to his lectures on mechanics, etc., and projected a history of Northumberland and Durham, collections for which were found among his papers.
John Horsley (born 1920 in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, England) is an English actor.
He made his acting debut at the Theatre Royal in Bournemouth. His early career saw him playing a succession of doctors and policemen, the former on film in Hell Drivers (1957), the latter on television in Big Breadwinner Hog (1969). He is best known, though, for his role as Doc Morrissey in the BBC sitcom The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin from 1976 to 1979. He reprised the role in The Legacy of Reginald Perrin in 1996.
He was a contender for the role of Lord President Borusa in the Doctor Who serial Arc of Infinity, but the role went to Leonard Sachs.
John made his acting debut at the Theatre Royal, Bournemouth. After spending a year in various reps. including Hastings, Watford and Eastbourne, he was conscripted into the Devon Yeomanry during the war and served in Italy and Sicily, but contracted hepatitis. He then became a member of the Army Bureau For Current Affairs - Play Unit, touring England, France and Germany. He then spent many years in theatre, before branching out into films and starring alongside David Niven and John Mills. He has also appeared in many TV roles.
