Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norton, Robert (1540?-1587)
NORTON, ROBERT (1540?–1587?), divine, born about 1540, was educated at Caius College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. 1558–9, M.A. 1563, and B.D. 1570. In 1572, on the occurrence of a suit between a Dr. Willoughby, vicar of Aldborough, Suffolk, and his parishioner tenant, Parker deprived Willoughby of the living, and presented Norton in his place, as ‘a learned man and a good preacher’ (Strype, Parker, ii. 157; Rymer, Fœdera, xv. 710). Four years later Norton was appointed town preacher to the commonalty of Ipswich, an ancient town lectureship connected with the corporate body, and exercised at the church of St. Mary Tower. In 1585 an acrimonious dispute arose between him and William Negus [q. v.], who was apparently the second minister, and under Norton. It probably arose from Negus's puritanical exception to Norton's enjoyment of a plurality, and ended in the latter's retirement to his Aldborough vicarage, though with a certificate from the commonalty of Ipswich attesting his good conversation and doctrine. His successor at Aldborough, Robert Neave, fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, was appointed on 30 June 1587, from which date nothing further is heard of Norton.
He wrote: ‘Certaine Godlie Homilies or Sermons upon the Prophets Abdias and Jonas, conteyning a most fruitefull Exposition of the same, made by the excellent learned man Rodolph Gualter of Tigure, and translated into English by Robert Norton, Minister of the Word in Suffolk,’ London, 1573, two editions; an epistle dedicatory to William Blennerhasset is signed by John Walker from Leighton.
[Strype's Parker; Cooper's Athenæ Cant.; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib.; Wodderspoon's Memorials of Ipswich, p. 366; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. ed. Herbert, pp. 901, 973; Rymer's Fœdera, xv.; Davy's manuscript collections for a History of Suffolk, Brit. Mus. xxiv. 45, 51; Coles MS. 50, f. 210; Lansdowne MS. 155, f. 84.]