Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lupton, William
LUPTON, WILLIAM (1676–1726), divine, born at Bentham, Yorkshire, on 1 June 1676, was son of Thomas Lupton, rector there. He matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford, on 30 March 1694, and graduated B.A. 1697, M.A. 1700, B.D. 1708–9, and D.D. 1711–12. He was elected fellow of Lincoln College in 1698, and for a short time was curate at Avening, Gloucestershire, to George Bull [q. v.], afterwards bishop of St. David's, through whose influence, in all probability, he became rector of Richmond, Yorkshire, in 1705. Resigning Richmond the next year, he was appointed lecturer of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, London, and in 1714 preacher of Lincoln's Inn, and afternoon preacher at the Temple. On 13 Sept. 1715 he was presented to the ninth prebendal stall in Durham Cathedral. He died at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on 13 Dec. 1726, and was buried there. A portrait, engraved by Vertue, is prefixed to the edition of twelve of his sermons published in 1729. Lupton was a good preacher, and printed a number of single sermons. He was notable for his championship of the doctrine of eternal punishment. Tillotson preached a sermon on this subject before the queen on 7 March 1689–90, and was said, though wrongly, to have explained away the old doctrine, for, the nonjurors hinted, the comfort of Queen Anne. Lupton upheld the orthodox view, in a sermon preached before the university of Oxford on 24 Nov. 1706 (published at London in 1708). Hickes, Kettlewell, Whiston, and others took part in the controversy (cf. Tobias Swinden's Enquiry into the Nature and Place of Hell, 1714, 1727, Supplement).
[Noble's Contin. of Granger's Biog. Hist. iii. 109; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Birch's Life of Tillotson, pp. 217–19; Nelson's Life of Bull; Hist. Reg. vol. xi. 13 Dec.; Le Neve's Fasti Eccles. Angl. iii. 317.]