Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bell, William (1625-1683)
BELL, WILLIAM, D.D. (1625–1683), archdeacon of St. Albans, was born at London, in the parish of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, on 4 Feb. 1625. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, and elected a scholar of St. John's College, Oxford, in 1643. He graduated B.A. in July 1647, and obtained a fellowship in his college, of which he was subsequently a benefactor. Ejected from this post by the visitors appointed by parliament, he appears to have visited the Continent in 1649, and to have obtained a benefice in Norfolk in 1655, for which he was disqualified by the tryers. On the Restoration he was made chaplain to Sir John Robinson, lieutenant of the Tower, and in the following year was admitted to the degree of B.D. In 1662 he was presented by his college to the living of St. Sepulchre's, London, which he seems to have filled in a way that secured the respect and affection of his parishioners. Three years later, Dr. Henchman, bishop of London, made him prebendary of Reculversland in St. Paul's Cathedral. In 1667 he was made chaplain to the king, and in 1671 archdeacon of St. Albans. To these preferments was also added a lectureship at the Temple. He died 19 July 1683, aged 58, and was buried in St. Sepulchre's Church.
He published the following sermons: 1. 'City Security,' 1660. 2. 'Joshua's Resolution to serve God,' 1672. 3. 'Sermon at the Funeral of Mr. Anthony Hinton,' 1679. There is an 'Elegy on the Death of the reverend, learned, and pious William Bell, D.D.' amongst the Luttrell collection of broadsides, in which he is pronounced 'a mighty loyalist and truth's defendant.'
[Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), iv. 94, and Fasti, ii. 103, 254, 302; Kennett's Register and Chronicle, Ecclesiastical and Civil, 1728, p. 796; Newcourt's Repertorium Eccles. Paroch. 1708, i. 96, 205, 534; Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy, 1854, ii. 431; Stowe's Survey, ed. Strype, 1720, iii. 243; Ackerman's Hist. of Univ. of Oxford, 1814, ii. 128.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.22
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 176 | i | 6-7 | Bell, William (1625-1683): for Three years later read In March 1665-6 |
| 8 | for Reculversland read Reculverland |