Jenkyn (Jenkin), William (1613-12-01 - 1685-01-19)

Baptized 3 December 1613 at All Saints', Sudbury, Suffolk where his father was the vicar. His parents had strong puritan sympathies, ensuring he had a godly education before he matriculated from St John's College, Cambridge in 1628. He graduated BA in 1632 before migrating to Emmanuel College, where he proceeded MA in 1635. Lecturer at St Nicholas Acons, London, 1639-1641; St Leonard, Colchester, 1641-1642; vicar of Christ Church, Newgate Street, London in 1643-1650. He was a staunch presbyterian, instituting a presbyterian church order at Christ Church. He was vocal against other sects, carrying on a long dispute with John Goodwin, vicar of St Stephen Coleman Street. He was concerned about sectarian influence in the New Model Army and became a forceful opponent of the Commonwealth. He refused to celebrate parliamentary mandated fasting days and was summoned with James Cranford before the committee for plundered ministers in June 1650. He was unrepentant and sequestered. He was arrested in spring 1651 for complicity in the City presbyterian plot to restore Charles II to the throne. He was released in October after he signed a recantation. His fortunes improved with the Cromwellian protectorate. He was elected minister at St Anne Blackfriars in 1654 and reinstituted at Christ Church in 1658. Ejected for nonconformity in 1662, but continued preaching in conventicles in London and Hertfordshire, where he retired following the 1664 Conventicle Act. At the Royal Declaration of Indulgence in 1672, he returned to London and was licensed as a presbyterian, where he ministered at a newly-built meeting-house on Jewin Street. He continued to preach there until 1682, when the mood again turned against nonconformity and he was fined, then arrested in 1684. He died in Newgate gaol 19 Januar 1685. He was married to Elizabeth Lovekin (d. 1675) with whom he had ten children.