William Dugard

William Dugard, or Du Gard (9 January 1606 – 3 December 1662), was an English schoolmaster and printer. During the English Interregnum, he printed many important documents and propaganda, first in support of Charles I and later of Oliver Cromwell. He also proved a successful (if controversial) master at a number of schools, including the Merchant Taylor's School, Colchester Royal Grammar School and Stamford School, and wrote a number of non-fiction works.

Early life and education Dugard was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, the son of Henry Dugard, a clergyman and schoolmaster, and his wife, Elizabeth Kimberley, on 9 January 1606. as a King's Scholar. studying with his uncle Richard Dugard.

Early teaching career Soon after receiving his MA, Dugard was appointed Master of Stamford School in Lincolnshire, where he caused a great deal of controversy by suing the corporate officers for various abuses, including misappropriation of school lands.

Dugard's wife, Elizabeth Adams, whom he had married before 1631, died about 1640, leaving two children. Their 3 Stamford-born children were Richard Dugard (1631-before 1634), Richard Dugard (1634; attended St John's College, Oxford in 1650) and Thomas Dugard (1635). Dugard married his second wife, Lydia Parker (widow Tyler, of Lombard Street), on 22 March 1641 at All Hallows Stayning in Lombard Street, London. For showing, as was thought, too great an affection to the royalist cause, on 20 February 1650, he was deprived of his press and equipment, valued at £1000 (£ in today's money), and imprisoned in Newgate. His wife and six surviving children were turned out of doors.

Dugard was released from prison after only a month, In April 1650, Dugard opened a private school on Peter's Hill, now in the City of London, but in September was restored to his former station as headmaster at the Merchant Taylor's School. all copies of which were ordered to be seized and publicly burnt. However, his relations with the government do not seem diminished as he continued to print works praising the policies and victories of the Commonwealth and its army, including, in 1652, Milton's Latin translation of the declaration of war against the states of Holland and, on the order of the committee for foreign affairs, English and Latin versions of John Selden's Mare clausum.

Written

Specialising in school textbooks, over the course of his life Dugard published a variety of works for the use of local schools:

Rhetorices elementa (Principles of Rhetoric, 1648). The English Rudiments of the Latine Tongue (1656) Lexicon Graeci Testamenti aphabeticum; una cum explicatione grammatica vocum singularum, in usum tironum. Necnon Concordantia singulis dictionibus apposita, in usum theologiae canditatorum (1660); reprinted by William Bowyer in 1774, who left it "accurately corrected and much enlarged, and often wished in his latter days he had been able to publish for the use of schools and the benefit of young students in divinity". Rhetorices compendium (published in octavo format); Luciani Samosatensis dialogorum selectorum libri duo, cum interpretatione Latina, multis in locis emendata, et ad calcem adjecta (also octavo) A Greek Grammar