Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/119

Statham Cycling (Badminton Library), 1887, pp. 67, 492; Cyclist, 24 Jan. 1883; information from Messrs. Starley Brothers.]

 STATHAM, NICHOLAS (fl. 1467), lawyer is stated to have been born at Morley, Derbyshire (Ashmolean MS. 816, where he is called John). He was reader of Lincoln's Inn in Lent term 1471. On 30 Oct. 1467 he received a patent for the reversion as second baron of the exchequer on the death of John Clerke. Clerke was certainly alive in 1471, but there was no mention of either him or Statham between that date and 3 Feb. 1481, when Thomas Whittington was made second baron. Consequently it is not known whether Statham ever obtained the office. Statham's name is never mentioned in the year-books, but he is credited with an abridgment of the cases reported in them in the reign of Henry VI, which is the earliest work of the kind now extant, Statham's abridgment was printed by R. Pynson as 'Epitome Annalium Librorum tempore Henrici Sexti,' London [1495?], 4to; other editions appeared in 1585 and 1679 (Brit. Mus. Cat.)

 STAUNFORD, WILLIAM (1509–1558), judge. [See .]

STAUNTON, EDMUND (1600–1671), president of Corpus Cbristi College, Oxford, a younger son of Francis (afterwards Sir Francis) Staunton, was born at Woburn, Bedfordshire, on 20 Oct. 1600. He matriculated from Wadham College, Oxford, on 9 June 1615, and on 4 Oct. following was admitted scholar of Corpus Christi. While still an undergraduate, on 22 March 1616-17, he was transferred from the Bedfordshire scholarship to the Bedfordshire fellowship. After a dangerous illness when he was about eighteen, and a narrow escape from drowning in the river, whither he had repaired 'alone, to wash himself,' he had, about 1620, to use his own words, 'many sad and serious thoughts concerning my spiritual and eternal state.' On proceeding M.A. in 1623, he selected the ministry as his profession, and commenced his clerical life as afternoon lecturer at Witney, where he was very acceptable to the people, but obnoxious to the rector of the parish. But he soon left Witney for the valuable living of Bushey in Hertfordshire, and this living he shortly afterwards exchanged for that of Kingston-on-Thames, where he remained for about twenty years, being known by the name of 'the searching preacher.'  There he devoted himself to constant preaching and catechising, taught from house to house, and set up a weekly lecture, supplied, in turn, by the most eminent preachers in that part of England. While at Kingston he proceeded B.D.and D.D. at Oxford in 1634, and he was chosen to be not only one of the assembly of divines which met at Westminster in 1643, but also one of the six preachers in the abbey.

When Dr. Robert Newlyn was ejected from the presidency of Corpus by the 'committee of Lords and Commons for Reformation of the University of Oxford' (22 May 1648), Staunton, a former fellow and a leading puritan divine, was appointed in his place. But the actual ejection of Dr. Newlyn and assumption of the office by Dr. Staunton did not take place till 11 July following. Staunton was a great improvement upon his predecessor, who was remarkable solely for the extreme old age to which he lived, and for the shameless nepotism which he practised after his restitution at the Restoration. Staunton was a good disciplinarian, and as a presbyterian divine was earnest in preaching, prayer, and catechising. He thereby incurred the ridicule of the royalist party (for some macaronic verses on his style of preaching, see, History of Corpus Christi College, pp. 221-2).

On 15 June 1652 Staunton, who had submitted lo the 'engagement,' was nominated by the committee of parliament to be on the new board of visitors, which was limited to ten. On the third board, nominated by the lord protector about two years afterwards, Staunton's name does not appear.

Staunton was, in his turn, ejected from the president's lodgings on 3 Aug. 1660, his predecessor, Newlyn, having been already been reinstated in his office. Withdrawing from Oxford, he retired, in the first instance, to Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire, whence he ministered in various parishes around. On St. Bartholomew's day 1662 he was silenced, like other nonconformists, but he seems, after remaining at Rickmansworth about two years longer, to have lived in various private families, and to have exercised his ministerial functions in a private manner possibly, but in defiance of the law. 'His great sufferings and often imprisonments,' alluded to by the author of the 'Brief Relation' (see below), may probably be referred to this period of his life. According to the Rev. Robert Watts (d. 1726), 'after preaching in several conventicles at London, Staunton became pastor of a celebrated meeting-house at Salters' Hall, which was built on purpose for him' (, Athenæ ed. Bliss). 