John Mainwaring John Mainwaring John Mainwaring (1724–1807) was an English theologian and the first biographer of the composer Georg Friedrich Händel in any language. He was a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and became rector of the parish of Church Stretton, Shropshire, and, later professor of Divinity at Cambridge. In 1760, one year after Handel was buried in Westminster Abbey he published anonymously a biography 'Memoirs of the Life of the Late George Frederic Handel'. More than half of this biography is focused on the years before 1712, when Handel moved to London. Therefore, it is supposed he received information from
Captain Mainwaring bitter about Wilson's wealthy upbringing; being raised by a nanny, a father who held a career in "the City", and having attended public school, believing it made him "wet", while his own grammar school background is a positive attribute (Mainwaring went to Eastbourne Grammar School and Wilson went to Meadow Bridge public school). Mainwaring is an inverted snob who believes that it is the class system that prevents his promotion to the higher echelons of the Bank. By contrast, Wilson seems to have no social ambitions at all, is down to earth and easy going and seems amused by Mainwaring's