Timothy Hall

the son of a Turner of Wood, was born in the Parish of S. Catherine near the Tower of London, (where his father obtained some estate in houses) became a Student in Pembroke Coll. in the beginning of the year 1654, aged 17 years or thereabouts, trained up there under a Presbyterian discipline, (which caused him ever after to be a Trimmer) took one degree in Arts, left the College without compleating it by Determination, and what preferment he enjoyed afterwards in, or near, the great City, I know not: sure I am, that several years after his Majesties restauration, he became Rector of Allhallowes Staining in Mark lane in London; in which place we find him in 1688, when then, in the month of May or June, he, by vertue of his Majesties Declarations for Liberty of Conscience bearing date 4 and 27 of Apr. going before, did read in his Church, (when the generality of London Ministers refused) the said Declarations in the time of Service on a Sunday, or at least gave half a Crown to another (the Parish Clerk I think) to do it: for which great service, his then Maj. K. Jam. 2, did confer upon him the Bishoprick of Oxon, void by the death of Dr. Sam. Parker; an act so egregiously resented by the true sons of the Church of England, that they look’d upon it as a matter to bring their Church into contempt, by throwing upon it such an obscure person to be a father, as he had before, two or more, &c. without any regard had to merit. He was consecrated at Lambeth by the Archb. of Canterbury, Bishops of Chichester and Chester, on the seventh of Octob. 1688; but when he came into these parts to see and take possession of his house at Cudesden, the Dean and Canons of Ch. Ch. refused to install him, the Gentry to meet or congratulate him, the Vicech. and Heads to take notice of him, or any Master or Bachelaur to make application to, or take holy Orders from, him: So that when he was in Oxon, at Whitsontide in the month of May 1689, Baptista Bishop of Man then there, did that duty in Magd. Coll. Chappel on the 26 of the said month, at which time 84 persons or thereabouts were ordained Ministers. This Mr. Hall, called by some Doctor, and by others Sir, Hall, died miserably poor at Hackney near London, on the tenth day of Apr. in sixteen hundred and ninety,1690. and was buried in the Church there on the 13 of the same month. In the said See of Oxon succeeded John Hough D. D. President of Magd. Coll. This Bish. Hall hath published two Sermons, viz. one at the Funeral of Major Rob. Huntingdon, who died suddenly of an Apoplexy 14 Aug. 1685, aged 70 or more: And the other at Mercers Chappel after he was Bishop: but neither of these have I yet seen. The said Rob. Huntingdon Esq (son of Rob. Huntingdon of Yarmouth in Norfolk) was Commissioner of the Excise at London, had been a Major in a Regiment in the Parliament Army, left them when he saw they would take away the life of King Ch. 1. (to whom he had been very civil in the time of his affliction, which that King acknowledges in his works) hated Oliver for his diabolical Proceedings, and was hated by him again so much that he imprisoned him several times. His body was buried in the Ch. of Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire, of which Town he was Impropriator, by vertue of a Lease from Allsoules Coll.