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 the (fictional) suffragan Bishop of Clegthorpe and her parents look down on Captain Mainwaring for "marrying beneath her"; which may go some way to explaining Mainwaring's extreme class consciousness and slight prudery. Mainwaring talks up his own social background by claiming that his father was a "Master Tailor" but in "My Brother and I" his brother reveals that he merely owned a draper's shop. On occasion Mainwaring has even described some of Wilson's ideas as "Bolshie" (i.e. Bolshevik), when he says something along the lines of "Let's have none of your Bolshie ideas here!". Despite their various issues with each