Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harward, Simon
HARWARD, SIMON (fl. 1572–1614), divine and author, matriculated as pensioner of Christ's College, Cambridge, December 1572, and graduated B.A. in 1574–5, was incorporated B.A. of Oxford 9 July 1577, and proceeded M.A. 5 May 1578 (Oxf. Univ. Reg. vol. ii. pt. i. p. 304; Oxf. Hist. Soc.). In 1577 he was chaplain of New College, Oxford, and on 26 Nov. 1579 was presented to the rectory of Warrington, Lancashire, which he resigned before 24 July 1581, when his successor was appointed. Subsequently, having what Wood calls ‘a rambling head,’ he was ‘preacher’ at Crowhurst, Banstead, and Tandridge in Surrey, and probably at Bletchingley in Surrey and Odiham in Hampshire. He was instituted vicar of Banstead on 1 Dec. 1604. At one or more of these places he kept a school and practised medicine. He married, at Manchester on 25 Sept. 1582, Mary, daughter of Robert Langley, sometime boroughreeve of Manchester. The date of his death is unknown.
He wrote: 1. ‘Two Godlie and Learned Sermons, preached at Manchester,’ 1582, 12mo; one of these sermons was also published separately (see Axon, Lancashire Gleanings, p. 219). 2. ‘The Summum Bonum, or Chief Happiness of a Faithful Christian, a Sermon preached at Crowhurst,’ 1592, 8vo. 3. ‘The Solace for the Souldier and Saylour: contayning a Discourse and Apologie out of the Heavenly Word,’ 1592, 4to. 4. ‘Encheiridion Morale: in quo Virtutes quatuor (ut vocant) cardinales … describuntur,’ 1597 8vo; dated from Tandridge. 5. ‘Three Sermons [at Tandridge and Crowhurst] upon some portions of the former Lessons appointed for certain Sabbaths,’ 1599, 12mo. 6. ‘Phlebotomy, or a Treatise of Letting of Blood,’ 1601, 8vo. 7. ‘A Discourse of Several kinds and causes of Lightnings, which written by occasion of a Fearfull Lightning which on the 17th. … November 1606 did … burne up the Spire-steeple of Bletchingley,’ 1607, 4to. 8. ‘A discourse concerning the Soul and Spirit of Man,’ 1614. 9. ‘A Treatise on Propagating Plants,’ 1623, 4to; also printed at the end of W. Lawson's ‘New Orchard and Garden,’ 1626 and 1631, and in G. Markham's ‘A Way to Get Wealth,’ 1638, 1648, 1657. Among the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library is an unpublished treatise by Harward entitled ‘Apologia in defensionem Martis Angli contra Calumnias Mercurii Gallo-Belgici.’
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 29; Wood's Fasti, i. 207; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 478; Beamont's Warrington Church Notes, 1878, p. 62; Descript. of County of Lancaster, 1590, ed. by Raines (Chet. Soc. vol. xcvi.), p. 22; Brit. Mus. Cat. of Early English Books, i. 419, ii. 779, 936; Earwaker's Manchester Court-leet Records, ii. 221; Manning and Bray's Surrey, ii. 596. Some extracts from his works are given in Haweis's Sketches of the Reformation, 1844.]