English divine and scholar, born in London on the 6th of August 1821. A scholar of University College, Oxford, he graduated with a double first-class in 1844, and in the same year he was elected fellow of Brasenose College. He was ordained in 1847, and shortly afterwards appointed chaplain, and then professor of pastoral theology, at Kings College, London. In 1863 he was given a prebendal stall at St. Pauls, and from 1869 to 1874 he was a member of the committee appointed by Convocation to revise the authorized version of the Old Testament. He was Boyle lecturer in 18661867 (Christ and Christendom), and Grinfield lecturer on the Septuagint at Oxford 18721874. After successively holding the livings of Pluckley and Brickley in Kent, he was installed in 1881 as dean of Wells. He died on the 1st of February 1891.
Plumptre was a man of great versatility and attained high reputation as a translator of the plays of Sophocles (1865) and Æschylus (1868), and of the Divine commedia of Dante (1886). In verse his main achievements were Lazarus (1864), and Master and Scholar (1866). Among his many theological works may be mentioned An Exposition of the Epistles to the Seven Churches of Asia (1877), The Spirits in Prison (1884), The Book of Proverbs (which he annotated in the Speakers Commentary), the Synoptic Gospels, Acts, and II. Corinthians, in Bishop Ellicotts New Testament Commentary, and Life of Bishop Ken (1888).