Matthew Mead

Matthew Mead or Meade ( – 16 October 1699) was an English Independent minister.

Early life The second son of Richard Mead of Mursley, Buckinghamshire, by his wife Joane, he was born about 1630 at Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire. In 1648, he was elected scholar, and on 6 August 1649 admitted a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. He resigned on 6 June 1651, William Cole says to avoid expulsion, owing perhaps to refusal of the engagement; but he had gained ill-will by urging the expulsion of Richard Johnson and others.

In search of a position Francis Charlett, rector of Great Brickhill, Buckinghamshire, died in 1653; Mead hoped to succeed him, but the patron, John Duncombe, presented Thomas Clutterbuck. Mead, on the ground that the patron's right had lapsed, obtained a presentation under the Great Seal. Duncombe appealed to the law, and a verdict for Clutterbuck was given at the Aylesbury assizes. Mead began another suit on the plea of Duncombe's malignancy. Clutterbuck resigned his title, and Duncombe, in July 1655, presented Robert Hocknell, whom the 'commissioners for approbation' (triers) rejected, putting in Mead by aid of a troop of horse. After some violent proceedings, the matter was compromised by Duncombe's agreeing to present William Peirce, a nephew of Hugh Peters. Mead now became morning lecturer at St. Dunstan's, Stepney, the afternoon lecturer being William Greenhill, who held the vicarage. He lived in Gracechurch Street, and was admitted a member, on 28 December 1656, of the congregational church formed at Stepney by Greenhill in 1644. On 22 January 1658, he was appointed by Oliver Cromwell to the 'new chapel' of St Paul's Church, Shadwell.

From Shadwell, as well as from his lectureship, Mead was displaced at the Restoration of 1660. He obtained a lectureship at St Sepulchre's, Holborn, from which he was ejected by the Act of Uniformity 1662.

Stepney congregation In 1663, he was living at Worcester House, Stepney. Either the Conventicle Act (1664) or the Five Miles Act, which came into operation in 1666, drove him to Holland. The substance of sermons at St. Sepulchre's, Holborn, in 1661, it was often reprinted; in Dutch, Utrecht, 1682; in Welsh, Merthyr Tydfil, 1825. Solomon's Prescription for the Removal of the Pestilence, 1666, 1667, with appendix. The Good of Early Obedience, 1683, Mayday sermons. The Vision of the Wheels, 1689, sermons on Ezekiel.

Posthumous were:

The Young Man's Remembrancer, 3rd edit. 1701, his last two Mayday sermons; often reprinted. Original Sermons on the Jews; and on Falling into the Hands of … God … with a Memoir, 1836, edited from shorthand notes transcribed by James Andrews in 1703 and 1710.

Mead had a hand in the English Greek Lexicon, 1661. His farewell sermon before ejection was published separately, 1662, and also in the Compleat Collection, 1663. He wrote a preface to The Life and Death of Nathaniel Mather, 1689.

Family Mead married Elizabeth Walton on 3 January 1654 at St. Mary Woolnoth Church in the City of London. Elizabeth was from Allhallows, Lombard Street, London.

They had 13 children, of whom the physician Richard Mead was the 11th.

An elder son, Samuel, was a fellow-student with Calamy at Utrecht in 1687; published at Utrecht a Disputatio, 1686, an Exercitatio, 1687, and an Oratio, 1689; in 1694 he was an evening lecturer at Salters' Hall, but was not ordained, and became a chancery practitioner.