lege, Cambridge, and proceeded M.A. in 1618. He was poser in 1627 (Harwood, Alumni Eton. p. 213). He acted as chaplain to the fleet which sailed to the relief of Rochelle in 1628. During the same year he was presented by Francis Gilpin to the rectory of Barningham, Suffolk (Addit. MS. 19079, f. 81). He did not live very harmoniously with his parishioners. Disputes about certain alleged customs in tithing led to a multiplicity of suits in various courts of law. Gilpin thereupon petitioned the king, 17 Oct. 1637, praying that the whole matter might be referred to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Norwich (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1637, pp. 478–9). The cause came on for hearing in the inner Star-chamber, 24 Jan. 1636, when an order was made in adjustment of the tithes, but Gilpin did not escape a lecture from Laud on the duty of living in peace with his flock (ib. Dom. 1637–8, p. 183). During the Commonwealth he occupied himself in the composition of a little work which he dedicated to Eton School; it is entitled ‘Liturgica Sacra; Curru Thesbitico, i.e. Zeli inculpabilis vehiculo deportata, & viâ devotionis Regiâ deducta a Rand. Gilpin, Sacerd. Vel, Opsonia spiritualia omnibus verè Christianis, etiam pueris degustanda,’ 8vo [London?], 1657. At the Restoration he was created D.D. by royal mandate (Graduati Cantabr.) He also obtained from the king the rectory of Worlingham, Suffolk, 10 May 1661 (Addit. MS. 19112, f. 246 b). He died a bachelor in 1661. His will, dated 9 Nov. 1661, requests that he may be buried in St. Mary's Church, Bungay.
[Authorities as above.]
GILPIN, RICHARD, M.D. (1625–1700), nonconformist divine and physician, second son of Isaac Gilpin of Strickland-Kettle, in the parish of Kendal, Westmoreland, and Ann, daughter of Ralph Tonstall of Coatham-Mundeville, Durham, was born at Strickland, and baptised at Kendal on 23 Oct. 1625. He was educated at Edinburgh University, graduating M.A. on 30 July 1646, and studying first medicine, then divinity. Neither the date nor the manner of his ordination is known. He began his ministry at Lambeth, continued it at the Savoy as assistant to John Wilkins, afterwards bishop of Chester (Calamy), and then returning to the north preached at Durham. In 1650 William Morland had been sequestered from the rectory of Greystoke, Cumberland, worth 300l. a year. For about two years the living had been held by one West, a popular preacher, who died of consumption. Gilpin succeeded him in 1652 or early in 1653. No fifths were paid to Morland. In the large parish of Greystoke there were four chapels, which Gilpin supplied with preachers. His parish was organised on the congregational model, having an inner circle of communicants and a staff of deacons. The presbyterian system, which it seems that Gilpin would have preferred, had not been adopted in Cumberland. In August 1653 Gilpin set on foot a voluntary association of the churches of Cumberland and Westmoreland, on the lines of Baxter's Worcestershire ‘agreement’ of that year, but giving to the associated clergy somewhat larger powers than Baxter approved. The organisation worked smoothly and gained in adherents; the terms of agreement were printed in 1656; in 1658 Gilpin preached (19 May) before the associated ministers at Keswick. He used his opportunities of influence with great judgment and disinterestedness, always acting as a peacemaker. His chief trouble was with the quakers, who abounded in his district; one of his relatives at Kendal, bearing his own surname, had been for a short time a quaker. Gilpin was in the habit of giving medical advice as well as spiritual counsel to his flock. By his purchase of the manor of Scaleby Castle, some twenty miles north of Greystoke, beyond Carlisle, he acquired a position in the county which gave him a lead in public affairs. His reputation for learning, scientific as well as scholastic, was recognised in his appointment as visitor to the college at Durham, for which Cromwell issued a patent on 15 May 1657.
At the Restoration Gilpin was one of the most prominent religious leaders in the north of England. In the redistribution of ecclesiastical preferment he was not overlooked. He was offered the see of Carlisle, for which his capacity for organisation admirably fitted him. Calamy ascribes his refusal to his modesty, reinforced by the recollection that his kinsman, Bernard Gilpin [q. v.], had declined the same dignity at the hands of Elizabeth. The explanation is probably correct, as he had no inflexible ideas on the subject of church government. He preached at Carlisle at the opening of the assize on 10 Sept. 1660. When Richard Sterne became bishop (2 Dec.), Gilpin was not called upon to vacate his living. He resigned it on 2 Feb. 1661 in favour of the sequestered Morland, retired to Scaleby, and preached there in his large hall. He is also said to have preached occasionally at Penruddock, a village in Greystoke parish, where John Noble, one of his deacons, gathered in his own house a nonconformist congregation, afterwards ministered to by Anthony Sleigh (d. 1702).
Shortly after the passing of the Unifor--
