Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gibbes, Charles

1183048Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 21 — Gibbes, Charles1890James McMullen Rigg

GIBBES, CHARLES, D.D. (1604–1681), divine, sixth son of Sir Ralph Gibbes, who was knighted at Whitehall in 1603, was born at Honington, Warwickshire, in 1604, matriculated from Magdalen Hall, Oxford, 26 June 1621, graduated B.A. 20 Feb. 1622–3. He was elected in 1624 probationer-fellow of Merton College, where, Wood tells us, he became ‘a noted disputant, orator, and quaint preacher.’ He proceeded M.A. on 25 June 1628, and in April 1638 was presented to the rectory of Gamlingay, Cambridgeshire, which he held until 1647, when he resigned it in anticipation of sequestration, being a zealous royalist. He appears also to have held about the same time the prebend of Combe Octava in the church of Wells. During the interregnum he taught at a school at Canterbury. On 30 April 1661 he was presented to the rectory of Stanford Rivers, Essex, and on 21 May 1662 was installed prebendary of Westminster; the same year he received the degree of D.D. from the university of Oxford. He died at Stanford Rivers on 16 Sept. 1681, and was buried in the parish church of that place. He published ‘XXXI Sermons preached to his parishioners upon several subjects and occasions. Never before made publick,’ London, 1677, 4to. At his death he was engaged in editing a volume of ‘sermons and discourses’ by his brother-in-law, Dr. Walter Raleigh.

[Dugdale's Warwickshire, p. 458; Oxf. Univ. Reg. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.) II. ii. 392, iii. 417; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 12; Wood's Fasti Oxon. i. 405, 439; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl. iii. 362; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, pt. ii. p. 75; Colville's Warwickshire Worthies.]

J. M. R.