8vo; third letter, 1738 [i.e. 1748], 8vo; postscript, 1750, 8vo (all anon.); collected with author's name and title: ‘A Dissent from the Church of England fully justified,’ 15th edit., Newry, 1816, 12mo, has important appendices by William Bruce (1757–1841) [q. v.] and Andrew George Malcom, D.D. [q. v.]; abridged by author, with title, ‘A Calm Answer,’ 1772, 8vo. 7. ‘An Essay … of the Character and Reign of King Charles the First,’ 1748, 8vo; 1780, 8vo; 1811, 12mo. 8. ‘The Baptism of Infants,’ 1750, 8vo; supplement, 1751, 8vo. 9. ‘Serious and Free Thoughts on … the Church,’ 1755, 8vo. 10. ‘The Grounds of Faith in Jesus Christ,’ 1784, 8vo. Three papers by him signed ‘Paulus’ are in ‘The Old Whig,’ 1739, vol. ii. Nos. 83, 90, 91. His portrait, by John Opie, has been engraved. He had a slight impediment in speech, which he never entirely overcame, though he was an effective preacher.
Matthew Towgood (fl. 1710–1746), first cousin of the above (elder son of Stephen), was schoolmaster at Colyton (1710?–16), minister at Shepton Mallet (1716–29) and at Poole (1729–35), but left the ministry and became a brewer. He published a few pamphlets, but is remembered only for his ‘Remarks on the Profane and Absurd Use of the Monosyllable Damn,’ 1746, 8vo.
[Manning's Sketch of Life, 1792 (abridged in ‘Protestant Dissenter's Magazine,’ 1794, pp. 385, 425); Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, 1714, ii. 384; Calamy's Continuation, 1727, ii. 833; Protestant Dissenter's Magazine, 1798, p. 241; Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, 1803, iii. 374; Rutt's Memoirs of Priestley, 1832, i. 321; Murch's Hist. Presb. and Gen. Bapt. Churches in West of England, 1835, passim; Turner's Lives of Eminent Unitarians, 1840, i. 391 sq.; Axminster Ecclesiastica, 1874; Clayden's Samuel Sharpe, 1883, p. 20; Jeremy's Presbyterian Fund, 1885, pp. 170, 175, 206.]
TOWGOOD, RICHARD (1595?–1683), dean of Bristol, was born near Bruton, Somerset, about 1595. The family name is spelled also Toogood, Twogood, and Towgard. He entered Oriel College, Oxford, as a servitor in 1610; matriculated 19 April 1611, at the age of sixteen; graduated B.A. 1 Feb. 1614-15, M.A. 4 Feb. 1617-18, B.D. 7 Nov. 1633. Having taken orders about 1615, he preached in the neighbourhood of Oxford, till he was appointed master of the grammar school in College Green, Bristol. In 1619 he was instituted vicar of All Saints', Bristol, and preferred in 1626 to the vicarage of St. Nicholas, Bristol. He was made a chaplain to Charles I about 1633. On 20 Feb. 1645 he was sequestered from his vicarage 'for his great disaffection to the parliament.' He was several times imprisoned, under unusually severe conditions, was ordered to be shot, and with difficulty reprieved. Gaining his liberty, he retired to Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire. After some years, through the mediation of Archbishop Ussher, he began to preach at Kingswood Chapel, near Wotton, and was soon after presented to the neighbouring rectory of Tortworth. On the Restoration he returned to St. Nicholas, Bristol, at the earnest request of the parishioners. He was installed, 25 Aug. 1660, in the sixth prebend in Bristol Cathedral, to which he had been nominated before the civil war; and was sworn chaplain to Charles II. In 1664 he was presented to the vicarage of Weare, Somerset. On 1 May 1667 he succeeded Henry Glemham as dean of Bristol, and in October 1671 he was offered the bishopric, vacant by the death of Gilbert Ironside the elder [q. v.], but declined it. He died on 21 April 1683, in his eighty-ninth year, and was buried in the north aisle of the choir of the cathedral. He published two sermons in 1643, another in 1676. By his wife Elizabeth he had sons Richard and William; his grandson Richard (son of Richard) was prebendary of Bristol (30 July 1685) and vicar of Bitton (1685), Olveston (1697), and Winterbourne (1698), all in Gloucestershire.
[Wood's Athenae Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 86; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, 1714, pp. 4 sq.; Leversage's History of Bristol Cathedral, 1853, pp. 68, 71, 87; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500-1714.]
TOWNE, CHARLES (d. 1850?), artist, son of Richard Town, portrait-painter of Liverpool, worked there originally as an heraldic or coach painter. In 1787 a small landscape by him appeared in an exhibition held in that town. His first appearance in London exhibitions was at the Royal Academy in 1799, when he had added a final ‘e’ to his name. Between that year and 1823 he exhibited twelve works at the academy, and four at the British Institute. From 1800 to 1805 he resided in Manchester, and is said to have then removed to London; but he had returned to Liverpool in 1810, where his name appears as a member of the Liverpool Academy in their first exhibition in that year. He was a vice-president in 1813, and resided in Liverpool until 1837, when he apparently returned to London. He died there about 1850. Towne painted landscapes and animals, and obtained great celebrity in Lancashire and Cheshire by his
