A rectangular white marble memorial tablet with pediment for Rev. John Kelly LLD inside Old Kirk Braddan (Church of St. Brendan) at Braddan Bridge in Braddan. This tablet is mounted on the south side of the nave of the church.
The epitaph on the memorial is as follows:
"IN MEMORY OF
THE
REV. JOHN KELLY, L.L.D.
OF ALCAER, IN THIS PARISH
VICAR OF ARDLEIGH, RECTOR OF COPFORD,
IN THE COUNTY OF ESSEX, WHO DIED 12TH NOVEMBER 1809,
IN THE 60TH YEAR OF HIS AGE.
LOUISA
WIDOW OF DR. KELLY, ELDEST DAUGHTER OF
PETER DOLLAND, ESQ. OF ST. PAULS CHURCH YARD, LONDON,
DIED 18TH APRIL 1844, IN THE 84TH YEAR OF HER AGE.
GORDON WILLIAM KELLY,
THEIR ONLY CHILD, DIED 4TH APRIL 1858
IN THE 73rd YEAR OF HIS AGE."
John Kelly was born on the 1st of November 1750 at Aalcaer in the Parish of Braddan. He was tutored by the Master of the Free Grammar School in Douglas, Rev Philip Moore. The young John was a quick learner and by the age of 17 he attempted the difficult task of compiling a Manx Dictionary.
John came to the attention of the then Lord Bishop of Sodor and Mann, Dr Hildesley, who engaged John to translate the Holy Scriptures into the Manx language. This work occupied John between 1768 and 1772 when the first edition was completed. It is for this work that Dr John Kelly is best known by posterity.
John Kelly left the Isle of Man in 1776 when he was invited to become Pastor for the Episcopal Congregation in Ayr, Scotland.
”JOHN KELLY (b. 1750, d. 1809),
only son of William Kelly, farmer and cooper, and Alice Kewley was born on his father's property of Algare, in Baldwin. He received his early education under the Rev. Philip Moore, of whom, since he displayed a remarkable aptitude for learning generally and especially for his native tongue, he was a favourite pupil. He was thus marked out as a suitable person for taking an important part in the work of translating the Holy Scriptures into Manx. It would appear that he entered, at the age of sixteen, in collaboration with the Rev. Philip Moore, on the arduous work of revising, correcting, and preparing the second volume of the Old Testament (from Job to the end, including part of the Apocrypha) for the press. KELLY also transcribed the third volume, containing the New Testament, and corrected the proofs for the press of the whole of the Old Testament. When making a voyage from Douglas to Whitehaven for this purpose, with the MS. of the Bible from Deuteronomy to Job, he was shipwrecked, but managed to save the MS. by holding it above water for five hours, till he was rescued from the sinking ship. At this time also he began "to collect and form the rules" of a Manx Grammar, being, as he says, without any printed or written documents to help him, except the Gospel of St. Matthew which was published by Bishop Wilson in 1748. This grammar was finished in 1780, but was not published till 1804.+ Judged by the critical standard of the present day, it is wanting in many particulars, but it is, nevertheless, a praiseworthy and useful publication. To return to the Bible—the translation of the Old Testament was practically complete in 1772, and Kelly, having received a well earned gratuity from the S.P.C.K. for his work, was thereby enabled to fulfil his long wished-for scheme of entering a University and so, in October of that year, we find him at St. John's College, Cambridge. Of his University career we know nothing, except that he took his B.A. degree in 1776. In 1776, he was ordained deacon and appointed to the charge of the episcopal church in the town of Ayre. In 1779, he became tutor to the Marquis of Huntley, afterwards the last Duke of Gordon. During the period between 1779 and 1790, he accomplished the greater part of his magnum Opus, the Triglot Dictionary of the Gaelic languages of Scotland, Ireland, and Man, with an English translation. The printing of this book we. begun in 1807, and had proceeded as far as the letter L, when a fire broke out and destroyed the whole impression except one or two copies." The Manx-English part of it was reprinted, with emendations* and with an English-Manx part,: by the Manx Society, in 1866. The same criticism may be applied to this publication as to the grammar. In 1791, JOHN KELLY was appointed Vicar of Ardleigh, near Colchester. He took his LL.D. degree at Cambridge in 1799, and became Rector of Copford, near Ardleigh, in 1800, being, at the same time, placed on the Commission of the Peace for the county of Essex. Of Dr. KELLY'S later years but little is known. He appears to have been a man of some mark in Essex and to have been generally respected as an earnest and liberal-minded divine. He married, in 1784, Louisa, eldest daughter of Peter Dollond, and granddaughter of the famous John Dollond, F.R.S., the inventor of the achromatic telescope, by whom he had an only son, Gordon William afterwards Recorder of Colchester. It was Gordon William Kelly who gave the " Manx Prize " which is still competed for at King William's College.
* These were by the Revs Hugh Stowell. Howard, and Fitzsimmons in 1811, and by the Rev W. Gill in 1869
<p<+ by Messrs J.Clarke and I Moseley
Manx Worthies
Memoir of the Rev. Dr. John Kelly
John Kelly – Scholar
John Kelly – Biography