Richard Gerard 1552/3-1614

Richard GERARD 1552/3-1614

Biographical Note

Son of William Gerard, Recorder of Chester, and nephew of Sir Gilbert Gerard, Master of the Rolls. BA Trinity College, Cambridge 1572, MA Gonville & Caius 1575, BD 1582; fellow of Caius 1574-82. Prebendary of Southwell 1580; chaplain to Elizabeth I. Rector of Stockport, Cheshire 1577-1614. Shortly before leaving Caius he was one of the leading figures in a group of fellows who accused the Master, Thomas Legge, of papist sympathies and of inclining too much towards ceremonies. His wife Ursula was the daughter of Ralph Arden of Alvanley, Cheshire, a long-established gentry family there.

Books

The size of Gerard’s library is not known but its disposition constituted one of the first bequests specified in the will of his widow Ursula. After some specific gifts (a two-volume set of Foxe’s Martyrs to her son William, Calvin’s sermons on Job to her daughter Elizabeth, and “my new Bible” to her daughter Margaret), she gave “all the rest of my books and whole library unto Thomas Gerard my son desiring him to apply them and follow his learning that he may do good in God’s Church as his late father deceased did”. The library is not included in the probate inventory accompanying the will. Thomas’s subsequent career, and the fate of the books, is not known; he may be the Thomas Gerard who matriculated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1622 of whom there are no further details in Venn.

Characteristic Markings

None of Gerard’s books have been identified.

Sources

• Brooke, C., History of Gonville and Caius College, 1985, p.90-1.
• Phillips, C., Stockport probate records 1620-1650, 1992, p.182.
• Venn, J., Biographical history of Gonville and Caius College, 1897.