Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rawlinson, John
RAWLINSON, JOHN (1576–1631), principal of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, son of Robert Rawlinson, merchant tailor of London, was born in 1576 and admitted to Merchant Taylors' School in 1585 (Robinson, Register of Merchant Taylors' School). Thence he was elected scholar of St. John's College, Oxford, in 1591, and graduated B.A. 5 July 1595, and M.A. 21 May 1599. In the latter year he was acting as a college lecturer (Oxford Univ. Reg. ed. Clark, i. 93), and is stated to have been master of Reading school in 1600. He was elected a fellow of his college in 1602, taking holy orders and proceeding B.D. 12 Nov. 1605, and D.D. 1 June 1608. He soon gained high repute as a ‘fluent and florid preacher.’ From 1606 to 1610 he was rector of Taplow, Buckinghamshire; and from 1609 was vicar of Asheldam in Essex. On 1 May 1610 the provost and fellows of Queen's College elected him principal of St. Edmund Hall. He was also made chaplain to Thomas Egerton, baron Ellesmere [q. v.], the lord chancellor, and chaplain-in-ordinary to James I, and was instituted to the prebend of Netherbury in Ecclesia at Salisbury, in which at his death he was succeeded by the well-known Thomas Fuller. In 1613 he was inducted to the rectory of Selsey (Sussex), and in the following year to that of Whitchurch, Shropshire, ‘in all which places he was much followed for his frequent and edifying preaching, great charity, and public spirit’ (Wood, Athenæ Oxon. ii. 505). He spent much time in Oxford, where in 1627 he built a new house, and was in confidential relations with Juxon and Laud (cf. State Papers, Dom. Car. I. lxxxvii.).
He died on 3 Feb. 1630–1, and was buried on the 10th in the church at Whitchurch, where his name long continued to be ‘precious.’ In the church of St. Peter's-in-the-East, Oxford, there is a curious inscription in English verse to Rawlinson's two younger daughters, Elizabeth (d. 1624) and Dorothy (d. 1629). Rawlinson published numerous separate sermons and one collected volume, entitled ‘Quadriga Salutis, foure Quadrigesmal or Lent Sermons preached at Whitehall,’ Oxford, 1625, dedicated to the prince (Charles). He contributed verses to Vaughan's ‘Golden Grove moralised,’ 1600.
[Authorities cited; Le Neve's Fasti, iii. 594; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Gutch's Antiq. i. 540; Lansd. MS. 984, f. 109.]