View source for William Whitaker (Puritan ejected minister)

{{Short description|English minister (1629–1672)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}}
'''William Whitaker''' (1629–1672) was an English [[Puritan]] [[ejected minister]].<ref> {{cite book |title= The History of the Puritans; Or, Protestant Non-conformists from the Reformation to the Death of Queen Elizabeth: From the Death of King Charles I. to the king's Declaration of indulgence, in the year 1672 |first1= Daniel |last1= Neal |first2= Joshua |last2= Toulmin |year= 1796 |publisher= C. Ewer and Wm. B. Allen |page= 542 }} </ref>
==Life==
The son of [[Jeremiah Whitaker]], he was born at [[Oakham]], [[Rutland]]. Aged 14 he was admitted a member of [[Emmanuel College, Cambridge]], where he became noted as a linguist. He took the degree of B.A. in 1642. Two years later he was admitted a Fellow of [[Queens' College, Cambridge]], and in 1646 he graduated M.A. there.<ref name="DNB">{{harvnb|Cooper|1900|p=23}}.</ref>
In 1652 he took orders and became minister of [[Hornchurch]], [[Essex]]. He succeeded his father in the living of [[St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey]], in 1654. After the [[English Restoration|Restoration]] of 1660  he was one of the London ministers who drew up and presented to the king the memorial against the [[Act of Uniformity 1662]].<ref name="DNB"/>
[[File:Bermondsey Long Walk meeting house.jpg|thumb|The meeting-house in Long Walk, Bermondsey, engraving from the early 19th century by [[John Chessell Buckler]].]]
After his ejectment he gathered a private congregation, which assembled in a small meeting-house in Long Walk, Bermondsey. For many years he took into his house candidates in divinity, including some from abroad.<ref name="DNB"/> He also took part in [[conventicle]]s at the house of Frances Cecil, Dowager Countess of Exeter (née Brydges, widow of [[Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter]], who died in 1663),<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=70625|title=Cecil, Frances|first=Alistair|last=Bellany}}</ref> with her chaplain [[Thomas Jacomb]] and [[Matthew Poole]].<ref>John Trevor Cliffe, ''The Puritan Gentry Besieged, 1650–1700'' (1993), p. 87; [https://books.google.com/books?id=OVqG0dgiSxwC&pg=PA87 Google Books].</ref>
[[Samuel Annesley]] preached his [[funeral sermon]].<ref>Sharon Achinstein, ''Literature and Dissent in Milton's England'' (2003), p. 34; [https://books.google.com/books?id=HKN5fpTbw-4C&pg=PA34 Google Books].</ref>
==Works==
He has two sermons in Samuel Annesley's ''[[Morning Exercises]]''. In 1674 eighteen of his sermons, which had been taken in shorthand, were published by his widow, with a dedication to Elizabeth Cecil, Countess of Exeter, and a sketch of the author's character by Thomas Jacomb.<ref name="DNB"/>
==Notes==
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'''Attribution:'''
*{{DNB |last=Cooper |first=Thompson |wstitle=Whitaker, William (1629-1672)|display=Whitaker, William (1629–1672) |volume=61 |page=23}}
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[[Category:1629 births]]
[[Category:1672 deaths]]
[[Category:Fellows of Queens' College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:Ejected English ministers of 1662]]
[[Category:17th-century Anglican theologians]]