William Sheridan, who was partly educated by his father, was Bedell's godson, and the bishop left him 40s. in his will. On 15 May 1652 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, and became D.D. in 1682. Under Charles II, Sheridan was chaplain to Lord-chancellor Eustace, whose funeral sermon he preached. He was afterwards chaplain to the Duke of Ormonde, became rector of Athenry in 1667, and on 25 Aug. 1669 was made dean of Down. He was consecrated bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh in Christchurch, Dublin, on 19 Feb. 1681–2.
After the accession of William III, Sheridan absented himself from his see to avoid taking the oath of allegiance, and, following the precedent in the case of the crown, this was held to create a vacancy. The succession was offered to Robert Huntington [q. v.] early in 1692, but he refused it with more decision than Beveridge had shown in Ken's case. The see was filled in 1693. Sheridan went to London, and lived thenceforth among the non-jurors there. He was in poor circumstances, and subscriptions were made for him from time to time among the Irish prelates. King, bishop of Derry (afterwards archbishop of Dublin), interested himself in the matter, and many particulars are given by Mant (Irish Church Hist. vol. ii.). A project, originating with Henry Dodwell, to procure him a regular allowance out of the income of Kilmore may have been frustrated by the poverty of that see. In 1704 King spoke of Sheridan as ‘exceedingly poor and crazy.’ He published many sermons both before and after his deprivation, of which Cotton gives a list. On 1 Oct. 1711, says Hearne, ‘died the Right Reverend and truly conscientious Dr. Sheridan, the deprived bishop of Kilmore in Ireland’ (Collections, iii. 240).
By his wife Mary (O'Reilly) he had a son Donald. His portrait, engraved by William Sherwin [q. v.], was prefixed to his ‘Sermons,’ 1704, 8vo.
[Bedell's Life by his Son, ed. Wharton Jones (Camden Soc.); Clogy's Life of Bedell; Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. App.; Dublin University Magazine, November 1852; Ware's Irish Bishops, ed. Harris; Cotton's Fasti Ecclesiæ Hibernicæ.]
SHERIFF, LAURENCE (d. 1567), founder of Rugby school, the son of respectable parents resident in Rugby, appears to have been born in that town, although Brownsover, a village in the neighbourhood, has also been assigned as the place of his birth. He removed to London, where he became a grocer. He lived near Newgate, on the site of what is at present 24 Newgate Street, and was connected with the household of the Princess (afterwards queen) Elizabeth, though possibly only through his trade. He was a staunch adherent of that princess, and when she came to the throne Sheriff was made an esquire and received a grant of arms. He was appointed the second warden of the Grocers' Company of London in 1566, and died on 20 Oct. of the following year. By his will he expressed a desire to be buried at Rugby, but, notwithstanding, he seems to have been interred in the graveyard of Christ Church, Newgate. He had a wife named Elizabeth, who survived him but he left no children. In his will, which was proved at London on 31 Oct. 1568, besides several other bequests to his native town, he left for the foundation and endowment of a school at Rugby the rent of his parsonage and farm at Brownsover, with all his property at Rugby, and one third of his Middlesex estate; together with 50l. for building purposes, and 100l. to be invested in land for the site of the school, and to provide for the maintenance of its headmaster, and the building of four almshouses. The school seems to have been founded immediately after Sheriff's death, but it was deprived of the revenues of the Middlesex property until 1614 by the fraudulent conduct of one of Sheriff's trustees. The school did not obtain full possession of the Brownsover estate until 1653, from which time the rapid increase in the value of the endowment assured its prosperity.
[Colvile's Warwickshire Worthies, p. 683; Goulburn's Book of Rugby School, p. 3; Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, i. 118, 127; Carlisle's Grammar Schools, ii. 662; Nicolas's Hist. of Rugby, p. 89; Hist. of the Public Schools, Rugby, p. 4; Foxe's Actes and Monuments, iii. 951, ed. 1641.]
SHERINGHAM, ROBERT (1602–1678), royalist divine, born in 1602, was son of William Sheringham of Guestwick, Norfolk. He was educated at Norwich under Mr. Briggs, and on 15 March 1618–19 was admitted a pensioner of Caius College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1622–3 (Venn, Admissions to Gonville and Caius College, p. 140). He was elected a fellow of his college, commenced M.A. in 1626, and was incorporated in that degree at Oxford on 15 July 1628. In 1634 he was presented to the rectory of Patesley, Norfolk (Blomefield, Norfolk, x. 28). He became one of the proctors of the university of Cambridge in 1644, but shortly afterwards was ejected from his fellowship at Caius on account of his adherence to the king's cause. Thereupon he retired to London, and, going subse-
