[A jocular combination of SQUIRE sb. and PARSON.] A clergyman who also holds the position of squire in his parish.
The word is commonly attributed to Bishop Wilberforce (1805–73), but has also been credited to Sydney Smith and others. Cf. L. A. Tollemache, Old & Odd Mem. (1908), 174. Squishop, similarly formed from squire and bishop, has also had some currency.
1876. Freeman, in W. R. W. Stephens, Life & Lett. (1895), II. 141. James Davies,… squebendary (cf. squarson and squishop) of Hereford.
1877. Sat. Rev., 10 March. A learned Bishop … instead of saying that they were squires and parsons combined was in the habit of joining the two words in one and defining them as squarsons.
1879. T. H. S. Escott, England, I. 14. That combination of minister of the Church of England and territorial potentate which Sidney Smith has called Squarson.
1890. Baring-Gould, Old Country Life, 136. A certain Bramston Staynes, who was a squarson in Essex.
attrib. 1895. Q. Rev., April, 554. The average clergyman of the Squarson era.
Hence Squarsonage, Squarsonocracy.
1886. A. Lang, Mark of Cain, ix. 109. She left the grey old squarsonage, and went to town.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 22 March, 1/2. The disestablishment of the Squarsonocracy.
