Christopher Elderfield

son of Will. Elderf. by Margaret his Wife, was born at Harwell near to Wantage in Berks, baptized there on the eleventh of Apr. 1607, educated in School learning under Hugh Lloyd M. A. of Oxon, Vicar of Harwell and sometimes Chaplain to the Bishop of Bangor, which Hugh built a considerable part of the Vicaridge-house standing near the Churchyard, and was buried in the Chancel of Harwell on the 17 of May 1654. As for our Author Elderfield he was entred a Batler in S. Maries Hall in Mich. term 1621, and being naturally inclin’d to good letters, made great proficiency in them, took the degrees in Arts, entred into Orders, and through several petit Employments became Chaplain to Sir Will. Goring Baronet, and Rector of a depopulated Town near to Petworth in Sussex, called Burton, having then only the House of the said Goring standing there. In the said House he spent his time in great retiredness, and wrot these books following, which shew him to have been well read in the Civil, Canon and Common Law, in School Divinity and other profound matters.

The civil right of Tithes, &c. Lond. 1650. qu.

Of Regeneration and Baptism. Lond. 1654. qu. The Author of these was a man of a single life, only wedded to his book, and so had only a spiritual issue to keep up his name. He was left both Father and Mother to the two said elaborate Treatises, and some conceive that the pains and travels of bringing forth the younger (tho more spiritual) manchild, did cost him his life. They are, and have been, both taken into the hands of learned men, and by them often quoted. The Author is stiled by the head ((*))((*)) Rich. Baxter in his First part of the Nonconformists Plea for Peace, &c. Lond. 1679. in oct. p. 205. of the Presbyterian Party A very learned and great Conformist, and by others of moderate perswasion a most profound Clerk. He died at Burton, (commonly called Burton place) before mention’d, on the second day of December in sixteen hundred fifty and two, and was not buried according to his Will in the Chancel of the said Chap. or Church,1652. (which Sir Will Goring denied, because he left him not those Legacies he expected) but in the body under the Readers seat. Over his grave, tho there be no monument, (with inscription on it) which the Testator desir’d, yet on the south Wall of the Chancel of Harwell Church before mention’d, is fastned a Tablet of Free-stone, with this written on it, which shall now go for his Epitaph for want of a better. “ Christopher Elderfield Clerk born in this Parish, gave by his last will and testament three hundred and fifty pounds, with two hundred fourscore and four pounds, whereof was bought so much land in the Parish of South Moreton, as is worth twenty pounds per an. And the other sixty and six pounds thereof residue (according to a Decree in his Majesties Court of Chancery) remain in the hands of the Church-wardens and other Officers of Hagborne: the benefit whereof he willed to be employed yearly in works of charity, bounty or piety, for the good of this Parish. But he expresly forbid that it should be added to the making up of taxes, or any other way perverted to the easing of able men upon any pretence, particularly he willed every Spring two good milch Cows to be bought and given to two the poorest men or widdows burdned with many children, toward their sustentation. He died Decemb. 2. an. dom. 1652.” —Thus far the inscription. He also beside several Legacies which he left to several people, bequeathed to the University of Oxon his Manuscripts of Lyra on the Psalmes, the History of Tobit in Hebrew, with Rodolphus his Postills bound up with Lyra, Clemens Romanus, with the Tract of Purgatory bound up with it. He left also six and thirty pounds to be bestowed upon godly poor Ministers cast down by these times, meaning loyal Ministers ejected from their Livings.