Henry Wilkinson

Henry Wilkinson, B. D. —This worthy divine was bom in the vicarage of Halifax, Yorkshire, October 9, 1566, and educated in Merton college, Oxford. He was a near relation to Sir Henry Savile, by whose favour he was elected probationer fellow of the college; and in the year 1601, he became pastor of Waddesdon in Buckinghamshire, where he continued in the laborious and faithful exercise of his ministry forty-six years. He married the only daughter of Mr. Arthur Wake, another zealous puritan divine, by whom he had six sons and three daughters. She was a person of most amiable character, and they lived together in mutual affection upwards of fifty years. He was u man of considerable learning and piety, and being an old puritan, says Wood,* was elected one of the assembly of divines. - But it is said that he spent most of his time among his parishioners, by whom he was exceedingly beloved and revered.

Mr. Wilkinson was author of " A Catechisme for the use of the Congregation of Waddesdon," oftentimes printed. Also '" The Debt-book; or, a Treatise upon Rom. xiii. 8. wherein is handled the civil debt of money or goods," 1625; and several other articles. The celebrated Dr. Henry Wilkinson, Margaret professor at Oxford, and ejected at the restoration, was his son.t Mr. Neal very much confounds the one with the other.* Mr. Wilkinson died at Waddesdon, March 19, 1647, aged eighty-one years. His mortal remains were laid in the chancel of his own church, where, against the south wall, was a monumental inscription erected, of which the following is a translation :$

Henry Wilkinson,

forty-six years the faithful pastor of this church,

was born the ninth day of October, 1566,

and died the nineteenth day of March, 1647.

He married Sarah

the only daughter of Arthur Wake

of Sawey Forest in the county of Northampton,

with whom he lived in holy concord flfty-three years,

and by whom he had nine children,

six sons and three daughters.

The remains of the aforesaid Sarah Wilkinson,

who lived to the age of seventy years,

were laid by the side of her husband,

leaving us an example

of a most upright and holy life,

* Wood's Athene Oion. vol. ii. p. 59.
+ Palmer's NoDcon. Mem. vol. i. p. 241.
J Neat's Puritans, vol. iii. p. 54.
S Ward's Gresbam Professors, p. 213, 214.

and a reputation scarcely to be exceeded.

John Wilkinson, son of the above,

who died December 18, 1664,

aged sixty-one years,

was also interred

near them.