Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/218

 Venn and his name and seal are affixed to the death-warrant. At one time he was much under the influence of Christopher Love [q. v.], who had been chaplain in his regiment, and lived in his house at Windsor; he used to attend his preaching at St. Anne's, Aldersgate, and when he was no longer able to attend had his sermons taken down and sent to him. He died on 28 June 1650 (, Obituary). Bate says that he was found dead in his bed in the morning, an account which is confirmed by his daughter's diary, and which probably gave rise to the royalist report that he committed suicide. It was referred to the committee of the army on 3 July 1650, ‘to consider of some recompence to be given for the faithful service of John Venn.’ His will was proved in London on 1 July 1650. Besides a small family estate at Lydiard, he left lands in several parts of England. He was attainted after the Restoration, 29 Aug. 1660, and it is said that his estates were forfeited.

He married twice: first, Mary, daughter of a city merchant named Neville, who was buried at All Hallows on 1 Aug. 1625; secondly, Margaret, daughter of John Langley of Colchester, and widow of John Scarborrow. In the license, dated 13 Feb. 1625–6, he is described as a silkman of All Hallows, Bread Street. By his first wife he had a son Thomas, ‘Captain Venn,’ who was author of a work on ‘Military Discipline,’ 1672, and was afterwards mayor of Bridgwater. By his second wife he had a son John, and a daughter Anne, whose diary was published in 1658 under the title of ‘A Wise Virgin's Lamp burning.’ Several other children died in infancy. His widow, Margaret, not long after his death married a Mr. Wells (? Thomas Weld, editor of his daughter's diary), a minister. There were many subsequent petitions from her to the House of Commons (Cal. State Papers) for arrears due to Colonel Venn.

His namesake, (1647–1687), son of his first cousin, Simon Venn of Lydiard St. Lawrence, was master of Balliol College from 1678 to 1687, and vice-chancellor of Oxford in 1686–7.

[Calendars of State Papers and of the Committee for Compounding; House of Commons Journals; George Bate's Lives, Actions, and Execution of the prime Actors … of that horrid murder … of King Charles …, London, 1661—a brief but much more trustworthy account than the one by Noble in his Lives of the Regicides; Notes and Queries, 9th ser. iv. 4; Venn entered his pedigree in the Heralds' Visitation of London (1633–4), as his son Thomas did in 1672.]  VENN, RICHARD (1691–1740), divine, born at Holbeton, Devonshire, on 7 Jan. 1690–1, was eldest and only surviving son of Dennis Venn, vicar of Holbeton, himself the third in a direct line of clerical ancestors who graduated from Exeter College, Oxford, and held livings in Devonshire. He entered at Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge, 1709, with a scholarship from Blundell's school, Tiverton, and graduated B.A. in 1712–13, and M.A. in 1716. He soon went to London, where he was probably curate to Thomas Bennet (1673–1728) [q. v.] He became rector of St. Antholin's in 1725, and was also weekday preacher there, preacher at Paul's Cross, and clerk of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. He acquired the reputation of a learned divine of strong high-church views, and formed close friendships with Francis Hare [q. v.], bishop of Chichester, Edmund Gibson [q. v.], bishop of London, and many of the leading London clergy. He is best known by his opposition to the appointment of Thomas Rundle [q. v.] to the bishopric of Gloucester in 1734, from the belief that Rundle held deistical opinions. The affair caused much public ferment, and government finally appointed Rundle to the bishopric of Derry in Ireland (, Memoirs, p. 229; Letters by several Eminent Persons deceased, London, 1782, ii. 35). During the controversy Venn was vigorously attacked by Arthur Ashley Sykes [q. v.], who wrote under the title of ‘A Gentleman of the Temple.’

Venn died on 16 Feb. 1739–40, and was buried at St. Antholin's. He married (license dated 2 Nov. 1716) Mary Anna Isabella Margaretta Beatrix (d. 1762), only surviving child of John Ashton [q. v.], and god-daughter of James II's queen. Her father was executed in 1691 for complicity in a Jacobite plot. By her Venn had three sons and a daughter. Of his sons, Edward graduated at St. John's, Cambridge, and became a physician at Ipswich; Richard was in business in London; and Henry [q. v.] is separately noticed. The daughter, Mary, married William James Gambier of Camberwell. A volume of Venn's miscellaneous writings was published by his widow in 1740, under the title ‘Tracts and Sermons.’

[Principally from manuscript Parentalia, communicated by his son Henry, and written by his grandson, John.]  VENNAR or VENNARD, RICHARD (d. 1615?), author, was the younger son of John Vennar of Salisbury, a commissioner of the peace. He was educated by