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JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
THE FOUNDERS OF CHARLES CHURCH. 
Part II. Thomas Bedford. 
BY MR. E. G. BENNETT. 
(Read December 21st, 1882.) 
My lecture of last year bore especially upon the founding of Charles 
Church, and in connection therewith upon Robert Trelawny, who 
was instrumental in obtaining the authority from the King and 
Parliament for building the Church, and now to-night I have to 
ask your attention for another founder, the Rev. Thomas Bedford, of 
Queen's College, Cambridge. 
The date and place of the birth of this divine I have not been 
able to ascertain, and until recently all that was known of him was 
the account given by Mr. J. Brooking Rowe : 1 " On the death of 
Dr. Wilson (1643) the lecturer, Thomas Bedford, was appointed 
his successor by the king. This, however, the men of Plymouth, 
then, as for some time previously, strongly Puritan and anti-monar- 
chical, would not consent to. He was expelled from the benefice, 
and in consequence of a sermon he had preached, and perhaps on 
account of his friendly relations with the king, his patron, was 
thrown into the town jail — bad long after in Howard's time, and 
probably much worse then ; for it is described as nasty — where he 
was kept until sent off by sea prisoner to London. He was never 
heard of after, and it is supposed that he either died on the passage 
or in prison." 
Recent researches have, however, enabled the history of this good 
man to be traced with more certainty. 
In the History of Cornwall, by C. S. Gilbert, it is said that he 
was descended probably from a Northamptonshire or Warwickshire 
family. He was educated at Queen's College, Cambridge, where 
he took his degree in Arts, and subsequently proceeded Bachelor 
in Divinity; he is next found as schoolmaster at Adderston, in 
1 Parish and Vicars of St. Andrew, p. 36. 
