Witton (1616–1674), afterwards an ejected minister. He was the second of four sons of Robert Tillotson (bur. 22 Feb. 1682–3, aged 91), a descendant of the family of Tilston of Tilston, Cheshire, and a prosperous clothworker at Sowerby, who became a member of the congregational church gathered at Sowerby in 1645 by Henry Root (d. 20 Oct. 1669, aged 80), but ceased his membership before Root's death. His mother was Mary (bur. 31 Aug. 1667), daughter of Thomas Dobson, gentleman, of Sowerby; she was mentally afflicted for many years before her death.
According to tradition, Tillotson in his tenth year was placed at the grammar school of Colne, Lancashire; he was probably afterwards at Heath grammar school, Halifax, to the funds of which his father had made a small contribution. On 23 April 1647 he was admitted pensioner at Clare Hall, Cambridge, and matriculated on 1 July. His tutor was David Clarkson [q. v.], who had succeeded the ejected Peter Gunning [q. v.] His ‘chamber-fellow and bed-fellow’ was Francis Holcroft [q. v.]; another chamber-fellow was John Denton [q. v.] The master of Clare was Ralph Cudworth [q. v.], who does not seem to have been popular in his college. Tillotson was not attracted by him, or by the school of ‘Cambridge platonists.’ In a letter to Root (dated Clare Hall, 6 Dec. 1649) he writes: ‘We have lesse hopes of procuring Mr. Tho. Goodwin for our master;’ the enforcement of the ‘engagement’ of allegiance to the then government ‘without a king or a house of lords’ was expected, and Tillotson, though he did not ‘at all scruple the taking of it,’ asked Root for his advice. He was a regular hearer of Thomas Hill (d. 1653) [q. v.], and a reader of William Twisse [q. v.]; the intellectual keenness of the Calvinistic theologians impressed him, but ‘he seemed to be an eclectic man, and not to bind himself to opinions’ (Beardmore). He was never a hard student, and kept no commonplace books. He studied Cicero and was familiar with the Greek Testament. At midsummer 1650 he commenced B.A. Not long after, ‘in his fourth year,’ he had a dangerous illness, followed by ‘intermittent delirium;’ a sojourn in the bracing air of Sowerby re-established his health.
He acted as probationer fellow from 7 April 1651 (having been nominated by mandamus from the government). Two vacancies occurring, he and another were elected fellows about 27 Nov. 1651. It was afterwards ruled that he had succeeded Clarkson in Gunning's fellowship; Tillotson ‘was sure’ he had been admitted, not to Gunning's fellowship, but to one legally void by cession (Beardmore). His first pupil was John Beardmore, his biographer; another was Clarkson's nephew, Thomas Sharpe (d. 27 Aug. 1693, aged 60), founder of the presbyterian congregation at Leeds. Except on Sunday evenings he used no English with his pupils; ‘he spoke Latin exceedingly well.’ He had ‘a very great faculty’ in extemporary prayer, and a strong appetite for sermons, of which he usually heard four every Sunday and one each Wednesday. He proceeded M.A. in 1654, and kept the philosophy act with distinction in 1655.
At the end of 1656 or beginning of 1657 he went to London as tutor to the only son of Sir Edmond Prideaux [q. v.], to whom he acted as chaplain. Through Prideaux, then attorney-general, he obtained an exchequer grant of 1,000l. in compensation for building materials, meant for Clare Hall, but seized for the fortification of Cambridge. At his suggestion Joseph Diggons, formerly a fellow-commoner at Clare Hall, left the society an estate of 300l. a year. Tillotson was in London at the time of Cromwell's death (3 Sept. 1658). His unpublished letter (8 Sept.) to Theophilus Dillingham, D.D. [q. v.], gives particulars of the proclamation of Richard Cromwell. He was present on the fast day at Whitehall, in the following week, when Thomas Goodwin, D.D. [q. v.], and Peter Sterry [q. v.] used in prayer the fanatical expressions which he afterwards reported to Burnet.
His change of feeling with regard to Goodwin is the first decisive indication that he had outgrown the prepossessions of his early training. He had been deeply influenced at Cambridge by Chillingworth's ‘Religion of Protestants’ (1637); in London he had heard Ralph Brownrig [q. v.], become acquainted with John Hacket [q. v.], and formed a lasting friendship with William Bates, D.D. But to none of his contemporaries did he owe so much as to John Wilkins [q. v.] Towards the close of 1659 Wilkins had migrated from Oxford to fill the mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge, where, as Burnet says, ‘he joined himself … with those who studied to … take men off … from superstitions, conceits, and fierceness about opinions.’ Tillotson does not seem to have been then in residence; he met Wilkins for the first time in London shortly after the Restoration. The two men became very closely connected. Wilkins's bent for physical research was not shared by Tillotson, though he was admitted a member of the Royal Society in 1672; meantime he was finding his way, under Chillingworth's
