William Paul

William Paul (1678–1716), Vicar of Orton, was a nonjuring Church of England clergyman and Jacobite sympathizer, executed for treason.

Life William Paul, born in 1678, was the eldest son of John Paul, who possessed the small estate of Little Ashby, near Lutterworth, Leicestershire, his mother being a daughter of Mr. Barfoot of Streatfields, Warwickshire. He received his early education at a school kept by Thomas Sargreave, rector of Leire, Leicestershire, and at Rugby, which he entered in 1696. In 1698 he went to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in 1701, and MA in 1705. Shortly after leaving the university he became curate at Carlton Curlieu, near Harborough, Leicestershire, acting at the same time as chaplain to Sir Geoffrey Palmer. He went thence to Tamworth, Staffordshire, where he was also usher in the free school; and subsequently became curate at Nuneaton, Warwickshire. From Nuneaton he was promoted to the vicarage of Orton on the Hill, Leicestershire, being instituted on 5 May 1709, after taking the oaths to Queen Anne and abjuring the Pretender.

On the outbreak of the rebellion in 1715 he set out with others to join the Jacobite forces in Lancashire. On the way north he was seized by Major Bradshaw, but was again set at liberty by Colonel Noel, a justice of the peace. He succeeded in joining the rebels at Lancaster, and at Preston induced Robert Patten to permit him to read the prayers. This permission, Patten affirms, he granted him unwillingly, because he was in lay dress; and he read prayers three times for the Pretender as King. He left Preston just before it was invested, and, although taken by General Wills, was discharged.

A portrait of Paul has been engraved in an oval along with John Hall, who was executed on the same gallows. The engraver is supposed to have been Vertue.