Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Daniel, Edward
DANIEL, EDWARD, D.D. (d. 1657), catholic divine, was a native of Cornwall. He entered the English college at Douay on 28 Oct. 1618 under the name of Pickford. After studying philosophy and one year of divinity he was sent with nine other students to colonise the new college founded at Lisbon by Don Pedro Continho for the education of English secular priests. These youths reached their destination on 14 Nov. 1628, and on 22 Feb. 1628–9 the college was solemnly opened. He was created B.D. and D.D. in 1640, being the first recipient of that honour after the Portuguese government had granted to the college the privilege of conferring degrees. He was then permitted to leave for the English mission, but was recalled in June 1642 to be president of the college, an office which he filled with credit for six years. Subsequently he was invited to Douay, where he was appointed professor of divinity on 1 Oct. 1649, and vice-president under Dr. Hyde, after whose death in 1651 he governed the college as regent until Dr. Leyburn was nominated as president. He continued to be professor of divinity till 4 July 1653, when he came to England and supplied the place of dean of the chapter in the absence of Peter Fitton, then in Italy, and on Fitton's death in 1657 he was designated to succeed him as dean; but he also died in September the same year.
He was the author of: 1. ‘A Volume of Controversies,’ 1643–6; folio manuscript formerly in the possession of Dodd, the church historian. 2. ‘Meditations collected and ordered for the Use of the English College at Lisboe. By the Superiors of the same Colledge,’ 1649; Douay, 2nd edit. enlarged, with illustrated frontispiece. The date of the latter edition is curiously signified by the following chronogram: ‘La Vs Deo MarIæ, et SanCtIs eIVs—i.e. M 1000, D 500, C 100, L 50, two V's 10, three I's 3 = 1663’ (Gillow, Bibl. Dict. of the English Catholics, ii. 11).
[Authorities quoted above; also Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornubiensis, pp. 103, 1146; Oliver's Catholic Religion in Cornwall, pp. 282, 380; Husenbeth's English Colleges on the Continent, p. 21; Catholic Magazine and Review, v. 417, 483, 484, 541; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 294.]