Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stock, Richard
STOCK, RICHARD (1569?–1626), puritan divine, was born at York about 1569. He entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in his nineteenth year, was chosen scholar on 10 Nov. 1587, and, after graduating B.A. in 1590 and M.A. in 1594, would have been elected fellow had there been a vacancy. He was a favourite with the master, William Whitaker [q. v.] He began to preach in 1594. On 15 July 1595 he was incorporated M.A. of Oxford. He was to have been one of the original fellows of Sidney-Sussex College, but left the university soon after the college building was begun (20 May 1596). He was rector of Standlake, Oxfordshire, in 1596 (Foster). After acting as domestic chaplain successively to Sir Anthony Cope (1548?–1614) [see under Cope, Sir Anthony, (d. 1551)], and to Lady Lane of Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, he went up to London, and was appointed lecturer at St. Augustine's, Watling Street. Soon afterwards he became curate to Thomas Early at St. Mildred's, Bread Street, and, on Early's death in 1604, became curate to Thomas Edmonds, B.D., rector of Allhallows, Bread Street. Edmonds was at the time too infirm to do duty; he died in 1610, and on 8 March 1611 Stock succeeded him in the rectory. Brian Walton [q. v.] was his curate in 1623–6. Both as a parochial clergyman and as a public preacher Stock maintained a high reputation. As a young man he had dealt, in a sermon at St. Paul's Cross (1606), with the inequalities in the incidence of the city rates, which pressed heavily on the poor, and was decried as ‘a greenhead.’ Towards the end of his life he reverted to the topic in a sermon at the election of lord mayor, remarking that ‘a grayhead spake now what a greenhead had done formerly.’ He was active in promoting the observance of the Lord's day. In preaching he made more use of quotations from the fathers than his puritan hearers were accustomed to. He died on 20 April 1626, and was buried in his church, where a monument (destroyed in the fire of 1666) was erected to his memory by his parishioners on 28 Jan. 1629. His portrait was three times engraved; he wore a moustache and square beard, and dressed in skullcap and ruff. His wife, by whom he had three daughters, survived him many years.
He published single sermons, 1606–14, including a funeral sermon for John Harington, second lord Harington of Exton [q. v.] Posthumous were:
- ‘A learned … Commentary upon … Malachy,’ 1641, fol. Appended is an ‘Exercitation’ on Malachi by Samuel Torshell [q. v.]
- ‘A Stock of Divine Knovvledge. … Description of the Divine Nature,’ 1641, 4to.
Brook distinguishes him from a contemporary Richard Stock, rector of Kirk Heaton, Yorkshire, and founder of a school there.
[Funeral Sermon, by Gataker, 1626; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714, iv. 1425; Wood's Fasti (Bliss), i. 271, ii. 82; Stow's Survey of London, 1633, p. 821; Fuller's Worthies, 1662 (Yorkshire), p. 231; Clarke's Lives of Thirty-two English Divines, 1677, pp. 61 sq. (portrait); Newcourt's Repertorium, 1708, i. 246, 499; Granger's Biographical Hist. of England, 1779, i. 368; Brook's Lives of the Puritans, 1813, ii. 344 sq., iii. 515.]