Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/206

Aspinwall delivered an address at the great free-trade meeting, held at Hull, at which Bright and Cobden both spoke. In 1853, after the celebrated Roscoe centenary at Liverpool, he published 'Roscoe's Library, or Old Books and Old Times,' dedicated to the Earl of Carlisle, 'the representative of the intelligence of the aristocracy and of the aristocracy of intelligence.' In this little work he holds up Roscoe as an example to the youth of the Mechanics' and Literary Institutes throughout the country, in whom he felt a profound interest. Aspinall had great sympathy with the free-trade party, and generally with the educational movements of his time. This is perhaps due in a great measure to the acquaintance he made with the working-class operatives at Rochdale at the commencement of his clerical career. He was domestic chaplain for a period of over thirty years to the Right Hon. Lord Clonbrock. On 17 Jan. 1861, when J.P. for Lindsey, he married, at West Butterwick, Annie, widow of W. Hunter, Esq., of the Ings, E. Butterwick. On 15 Feb. of the same year he died. His works, besides those already mentioned, consist of various sermons, parish, doctrinal, and practical.

[C. W. Sutton's Lancashire Authors, p. 5 ; The Hull Rockingham, 27 Jan. 1844; Catal. Brit. Mus. ; Gent. Mag., third series, vol. x. pp. 202, 467.]  ASPINWALL, EDWARD, D.D. (d. 1732), a polemical divine, received his education at Cambridge, and was appointed chaplain to the Earl of Radnor. Afterwards he became sub-dean of the Chapel Royal, and in 1729 was instituted prebendary of Westminster. He is the author of a 'Preservative against Popery,' 1715, and an 'Apology, being a series of Arguments in Proof of the Christian Religion,' 1731. The 'Apology' is prefaced by an address 'To all Impartial Freethinkers,' in which the author states: 'I have made it my sincere and labour'd concern to divest myself of every bias or influence that interest or blind passion might bring upon me, to the end that my mind, being (I think) perfectly disingag'd from all partial and unworthy motives, might remain absolutely free to determine itself by solid reason in the choice of reveal'd religion.' The arguments are clearly put, and the language is in the main temperate. But while he is willing to tolerate free discussion in religious matters, the author protests against his opponents' use of the weapon of ridicule. 'Let all men,' he says (p. 12), 'have an unbounded freedom to express their sentiments for or against religion; but let their words and writings stand clear of any scurrilous reflections, sneer, or sarcasm against it, or let the author be severely chastis'd by publick authority.' His arguments are chiefly directed against Antony Collins, the well-known deist. Aspinwall died on 3 Aug. 1732.

[Le Neve's Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, ed. Hardy, iii. 365; Gent. Mag. ii. 929.]  ASPINWALL, WILLIAM (fl. 1648–1662), one of the nonconforming ministers ejected in 1662, was of the Lancashire Aspinwalls, and so has a gleam on his name in relation to Spenser's 'Rosalind' ('s Who was Rosalind? in his edition of Spenser's Works, iii. pp.cvi-cvii). He was of Magdalen College, Cambridge, and had for tutor Joseph Hill. He proceeded B.A., but having obtained orders, went no further. His first living was Maghull, in Lancashire. In the Lancashire 'Harmonious Consent' of 1648, which denounces 'endeavours used for the establishing an universal toleration,' his name appears ('William Aspinwal, preacher of God's word at Mayhall') in a long list of signatories, headed by 'Richard Heyricke, warden of Christ Colledg in Manchester,' and including Hollingworth, Alexander Horrocks, John Angier, and indeed the foremost ministers of the county and time. These men had come to persuade themselves that 'the establishing of a toleration would make us [the English people] become the abhorring and loathing of all nations.' [See under .]

Aspinwall left his cure in 1655-6 to be ordained at Mattersey, Nottinghamshire, and was in that year inducted to Mattersey, in the church at Claworth, in the same county, along with a more notable man, John Cromwell, B.A., and two others ( Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, ed. Hardy, ii. 35). He was ejected by the Act of Uniformity in 1662. Upon his ejection he turned farmer at Thurnsco, in Yorkshire. There was 'a good house,' and it became a nonconformist meeting-place. Two other ejected ministers, Tricket and Grant, sojourned with him. Whether farming did not prosper, or the usual persecution drove him away, is uncertain, but in a short time he is traced once more in his native Lancashire. There Calamy states he died ; but Samuel Palmer (Nonconf. Mem. iii. 99) corrects this, and gives extracts from a letter dated Cockermouth, 16 April 1724, by which it would seem that he became minister of a 'dissenting congregation' in that town. The old presbyterian congregation there was 