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 to University College, Oxford, in 1652. His tutor was [q. v.], whom Wood calls ‘a zealous person for carrying on the righteous cause.’ Denton graduated, but is not mentioned by Wood. Leaving the university he taught a grammar school at Cawthorne, West Riding, preaching alternately at Cawthorne and High Hoyland. He was ordained in 1658 at Hemsworth by the West Riding presbytery as minister of High Hoyland. Thence he removed to Derwent chapel, Derbyshire, and about 1660 to Bolton-upon-Dearne, West Riding. From the perpetual curacy of Bolton he was ejected by the Uniformity Act of 1662, but continued to reside in the parish, except for two periods of about two years each, during the enforcement of the Five Miles Act (1665). For a year after his ejection he preached in the parish church of Hickleton, West Riding, being maintained as a lecturer by Lady Jackson, sister of, first lord Delamer [q. v.] Subsequently he preached, as occasion permitted, in Yorkshire and Derbyshire. Calamy, writing in August 1713, when Denton was in his eightieth year, says he still preached frequently at Great Houghton, a township in the parish of Darfield, West Riding, where there was a presbyterian congregation. Calamy describes Denton as ‘the picture of an old puritan.’ He had several overtures of preferment after his ejection, but remained steadfast in his nonconformity. He died in 1720, having outlived all who had been ejected with him fifty-eight years before. His son Daniel was presbyterian minister at Bull House, near Penistone, West Riding.



DENTON, RICHARD (1603–1663), divine, was born in 1603 in Yorkshire, and lived at Priestley Green. He took his B.A. degree at Catharine Hall, Cambridge, 1623. He became minister of the chapel of Coley, near Coley Hall, ‘an ancient seat of the tenure commonly called St. John of Jerusalem’ (, iv. 9). Here he remained about seven years, when, finding the times hard, the bishops ‘at their height,’ and the ‘Book for Sports on the Sabbath-day’ insupportable, he emigrated with a numerous family to New England. He settled at Wethersfield in 1640, but finding himself in disagreement with other ministers there on the subject of church discipline, he removed to Stamford in 1644, whence he departed not long after to Hempstead, Long Island, where he died in 1663 (, ii. 40). Cotton Mather, in his ‘Magnalia,’ gives a high-flown description of his eloquence and powers of persuasion, which he contrasts with the smallness of his stature and the blindness of one of his eyes. ‘His well-accomplished mind,’ says Mather, ‘in his lesser body was an Iliad in a nutshell.’ The same writer states that Denton wrote a system of divinity entitled ‘Soliloquia Sacra,’ descriptive of the fourfold state, which does not seem to have been published.



DENTON, THOMAS (1724–1777), miscellaneous writer, was born at Seberham, Cumberland, in 1724. He was educated by the Rev. Josiah Relph, and edited his master's poems when published by subscription in 1747. He entered Queen's College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. in 1745, and M.A. in 1752. He became curate to the Rev. Dr. Graham at Arthuret and Kirk Andrews, Cumberland, and there privately printed a ‘local poem’ called ‘Gariston.’ In 1753 he became Graham's curate at Ashtead, Surrey. Here he recommended himself to an ‘old and infirm’ Lady Widdrington, who persuaded Graham to resign the rectory in his favour. He was instituted 14 Nov. 1754. He married a Mrs. Clubbe, who had been companion to Lady Widdrington, and received a legacy from her mistress. Denton died at Ashtead 27 June 1777, leaving a widow and seven children. Lord Suffolk, the patron, gave the next presentation to his widow, and by judicious management she turned the gift into a ‘very comfortable annuity.’ Denton published: He also compiled the supplemental volume to the first edition of the ‘General Biographical Dictionary’ (1761).
 * 1) A manual of devotions called ‘Religious Retirement for One Day in Every Month,’ from John Gother, fitted for protestant readers.
 * 2) ‘Immortality, or the Consolation of Human Life, a Monody,’ 1754, reprinted in Dodsley's collection.
 * 3) ‘The House of Superstition: a Vision,’ 1762, prefixed to Gilpin's ‘Lives of the Reformers.’ Both are poems in imitation of Spenser.



DENTON, THOMAS (d. 1789), bookseller and artificer, was born in the North Riding of Yorkshire and was originally a tinman. He kept a bookseller's shop in York for some time, and coming to London about