William Barlow d.1613

William BARLOW d.1613

Biographical Note

Born in London, but descended from a family from Barlow Moor, near Manchester. BA St John's College, Cambridge 1584, MA 1587, fellow of Trinity Hall 1590, BTh 1594, DTh 1599. Chaplain to Archbishop Whitgift in the late 1590s; rector of St Dunstan in the East, London, and of Orpington, Kent, 1597. Royal chaplain, prebendary of St Paul's, and canon of Westminster, 1601. Dean of Chester 1602, in which capacity he attended the Hampton Court Conference, of which his published account of The summe and substance of the Conference (1604) is an important (though not wholly objective) historical record. Bishop of Rochester 1606, of Lincoln 1608. Theologically, he is described by ODNB as 'eclectic', with no strong identity either as a Calvinist or as an Arminian.

Books

In his will, Barlow bequeathed to Trinity Hall the eight-volume Bible of Arias Montanus, the Councils of the Church edited by Severinus Binnius, a two-volume Plato, and 'the whole civil course of the latter edition in six volumes folio'. These books were all to be 'placed in their library upon one desk by themselves and the name of the donor to be set out on the front of the desk'. The rest of his books were left to his nephew William Johnson, 'upon condition that he be a scholar at my death, and if while he live unless it be upon great want he shall sell any one of the folio books or give any away which he hath not double he shall forfeit all the rest to my executors and they shall sell them to the benefit of my two children [daughters]'. The extent of Barlow's library is not known.

Sources

• Will of William Barlow, The National Archives PROB 11/122/291.
• Crawley, C., Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1976, p.104.
• Knighton, C. S. '"Barlow, William (d. 1613), bishop of Lincoln."' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• Pearson, D., The libraries of English bishops, 1600-40, The Library 6th ser 14 (1992), 221-257, p.236.