Henry Cantrell

Henry Cantrell (baptised 17 September 1684 at St Oswald's, Ashbourne, Derbyshire – 1762) was a high-church Church of England clergyman and religious controversialist.

Education

The son of Simon Cantrell (1658–1744), he was educated at Derby School (where a relation, the Rev. Thomas Cantrell, 1649–1698, was headmaster) and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He matriculated at Cambridge in 1701, graduated BA in 1705 and MA in 1710.

Career summary

Cantrell was ordained a priest at Lichfield in 1709. In 1712, the corporation of Derby gave him the vicarage of St Alkmund's, Derby, Within months of his appointment, he was preaching against non-conformity, claiming that:

He refused to bury children baptised by dissenters, which led to a furious controversy in Derby. In any event, Cantrell's bishop refused to support his stance.

When his battles led to the forced sale of much of his library, he was offered the vicarage of Brecon through the influence of Dr Henry Sacheverell, but declined it.

Works

The Invalidity of the Lay-Baptisms of Dissenting Teachers, Prov'd from Scripture and Antiquity (1714, in reply to the Rev. Ferdinando Shaw's Validity of Baptism Administred by Dissenting Ministers (1713) The Royal Martyr a True Christian, or, A Confutation of a late Assertion, viz. that King Charles I had only the lay-baptism of a Presbyterian-teacher Commonplace book (manuscript)

Family

Cantrell first wife, Constance, was born in 1695 or 1696 and died on 24 May 1725. Their eldest surviving son became the Rev. William Cantrell (1716–1787), Rector of Stamford, Lincolnshire and Normanton, Derbyshire. On 2 August 1732, Henry Cantrell married secondly Jane Cradock, a daughter of Joseph Cradock, Rector of Markfield, Leicestershire.