Robert Wild 1615/6-1679
From Book Owners Online
Robert WILD or WILDE 1615/16-1679
Biographical Note
Born at St Ives, Huntingdonshire, son of Robert Wild, shoemaker. BA St John's College, Cambridge 1636, MA 1639, BD (Oxford) 1642, DD 1660. Rector of Aynho, Northamptonshire 1646 (ejected 1660) and briefly of Tatenhill, Staffordshire, before he moved to Oundle where he was licensed to preach as a presbyterian in 1672. He was a prolific satirical poet, and many of his poems were published during and after his lifetime.
Books
In his will, Wild bequeathed £50 to buy Bibles, to be distributed to children of St Ives by winning them through a dice game: each year, the interest was to be used to buy six Bibles, and children were invited to select dice from a dish set on the altar on the Tuesday after Whitsunday.
Sources
- Cambers, A. Godly reading, Cambridge, 2011, 182.
- Greaves, Richard L. '"Wild, Robert (1615/16–1679), nonconformist minister and satirical poet."' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- Matthews, A. G. Calamy revised. Oxford, 1934.
- Viles, David R., The Revd. Dr Robert Wilde ... provider of Bibles by dicing, Hemingford Grey, 2003.