Childrey, Joshua

, a divine and natural philosopher, was born in 1623, and educated at Rochester, whence he removed to Magdalen-college, Oxford, in 1640. and became one of the clerks of the house, but appears to have left the university on the breaking out of the rebellion. When Oxford was surrendered to the | parliamentary forces, he returned and took his bachelor’s degree, but two years after was expelled by the parliamentary visitors. He then subsisted by teaching school at Feversham, in Kent, although not without interruption from the republican party; but on the restoration, he was made chaplain to Henry lord Herbert, was created D. D. and had the rectory of Upway, in Dorsetshire, bestowed upon him. Jn Jan. 1663, he was collated to the archdeaconry of Salisbury, and in June 1664 to the prebend of Yatminster prima in the same church, by bishop Earle, who valued him as a learned and pious divine, and a great virtuoso. He died at Upway, Aug. 26, 1670, and was buried in the chancel of his church. He published, 1. a pamphlet entitled “Indago Astrologica,” 1652, 4to. 2. “Syzygiasticon instauratum, or an Ephemerisof the places and aspects of the Planets, &c.” Lond. 1653, 8vo. In both *hese is somewhat too much leaning to the then fashionable reveries of astrology but it appears by his correspondence with the secretary of the royal society, that he had made large collections for a more sound pursuit of the subjects usually investigated by that learned body, particularly of natural curiosities. His other publication was entitled “Britannia Baconica, or the natural rarities, of England, Scotland, and Wales, historically related, ac­$ording to the precepts of lord Bacon,” &c.“Lond. 1661, 8vo. It was this work which first suggested to Dr. Plot his” Natural History of Oxfordshire." ¹