Joseph, a divine and historian, was born in 1744, near Leeds in Yorkshire. He received his elementary education at the Leeds grammar school; but having the misfortune early to lose his father, he was deprived of the means of prosecuting his studies at a university. Milner, however, from his diligence and talent, obtained the employment of chapel-clerk of Catherine Hall, Cambridge, which enabled him to study at that university. After graduating in 1766, he entered the church, and divided his time between teaching and lecturing in Hull. He was made vicar of North Ferriby; and although he met with much neglect and opposition on account of his evangelical views, which subjected him to the charge of Methodism, yet his preaching was exceedingly popular. He was appointed vicar of Hull in 1797, but only enjoyed the preferment a few weeks, when he was removed by death. His principal works are the History of the Church of Christ, which was completed by his brother, and two volumes of posthumous Sermons.

Milner, Isaac, a learned divine, brother of the preceding, was born at Leeds in 1751. He was educated at the grammar school of his native town, and subsequently at Queen's College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1770. He attained to the honour of a senior wrangler in 1774, and gained a fellowship the following year. In 1785 he was appointed Jacksonian professor of experimental philosophy, received the degree of D.D. in 1788, became dean of Carlisle in 1791, and in 1798 was made Lucasian professor of mathematics. Milner was an intimate friend of Wilberforce, and in 1787 he accompanied him and Pitt to the continent. He died in 1820, after writing a continuation of his brother's Church History, besides Animadversions on Dr Harvey's History of the Church of Christ.

Milner, John, a Roman Catholic divine, was born at London in 1752, and educated at the college of Douai. After being ordained in 1777, he came to Winchester, where he presided over a Roman Catholic congregation. He was much attached to the study of ecclesiastical antiquities, on which he published several works, and displayed so much skill and learning as to be admitted, in 1790, into the Royal Society of Antiquaries. Milner also engaged in several religious controversies among the Roman Catholic clergy; and published several works on such subjects. He was appointed, in 1803, vicar apostolic of the midland district, and bishop of Castabala. He died in 1826. Milner's principal publications are:—A Dissertation on the Modern Style of Altering Cathedrals; History, Civil and Ecclesiastical, and Survey of the Antiquities of Winchester; Treatise on the Ecclesiastical Architecture of England during the Middle Ages.

MILNTHORPE or MILLTHORPE, a market-town of England, county of Westmoreland, near the east bank of the estuary of the Kent, and on the Preston and Carlisle railway, 7 miles S.S.W. of Kendal. It has manufactures of sacking and twine, and some trade by means of small coasting vessels, which come up, by means of the tide, opposite the town. Market-day, Friday. Pop. (1851) 1534.