Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dolben, William (d.1631)
DOLBEN, WILLIAM (d. 1631), prebendary of Lincoln, bishop designate, came of a family long seated at Segrwyd in Denbighshire, but was born at Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, the only son of John Dalbin or Dolbin of that town, by his wife Alice, daughter of Richard Myddelton of Denbigh, and sister of Sir Thomas Myddelton of Chirk Castle, Denbighshire, and of the famous Sir Hugh Myddelton. He was educated on the foundation of Westminster, whence he passed to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1603. He was author of Latin elegiacs in ‘Musa Hospitalis Ecclesiæ Christi Oxon. in adventum Jacobi Regis, Annæ Reginæ, Henrici principis ad eandem Ecclesiam,’ 4to, Oxford, 1605. He was instituted rector of Stanwick, Northamptonshire, 8 Nov. 1623, and on the same day to the rectory of Benefield in the same county (Bridges, Northamptonshire, ed. Whalley, ii. 195, 398). On 31 Aug. 1629, being then D.D., he became prebendary of Caistor in the church of Lincoln (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, ii. 128), a preferment which he owed to the lord keeper, Bishop Williams, whose niece he had married. Dolben died in September 1631, and was buried at Stanwick on the 19th of that month (parish register). He was so beloved by his parishioners that during his last illness they ploughed and sowed his glebe at their own expense, in order that his widow might have the benefit of the crops. In his will, dated 1 Sept. and proved 25 Oct. 1631, he left 20l. to the town of Haverfordwest ‘to be added to the legacy of my cosen, William Middleton’ (reg. in P. C. C. 105, St. John). By his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Captain Hugh Williams of Coghwillan, Carnarvonshire, he left three sons: John [q. v.], afterwards archbishop of York; William, who became a judge of the king's bench; and Rowland, a ‘sea-officer,’ and two daughters.
His great-grandson, Sir John Dolben [q. v.], when sending some account of the family to Thomas Wotton in 1741, writes: ‘I have heard my father often say yt his grandfather, Dr. William Dolben, was nominated to the bishoprick of Gloster, but yt upon his falling extreamly ill the instruments were suspended till he died’ (Addit. MS. 24120, f. 255 b.) Gloucester, however, was held by Dr. Godfrey Goodman from 1624 until 1640. It is most likely that Dolben was to have been bishop of Bangor, to which see his relative, Dr. David Dolben [q. v.], was consecrated on 4 March 1631–2.
[Welch's Alumni Westmon. (1852), pp. 71–2, 115, 160, 210, 387; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 868–9; Wotton's Baronetage (Kimber and Johnson), iii. 8–9; Betham's Baronetage, iii. 132–3; Chester's Westminster Abbey Registers, p. 18 n.]