ALEXANDER

See also:

• ALEXANDER NOWELL (c. 1507-1602)

NOWELL (c. 1507-1602)  , dean of St Paul's; London, was the eldest son of John Nowell of Read Hall, Whalley, Lancashire, by his second wife Elizabeth Kay of Rochdale . He was educated at Middleton, Lancashire, and at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he is said to have shared rooms with John Foxe the martyrologist . He was elected fellow of Brasenose in 1526 . In 1543 he was appointed master of Westminster school, and in December 1551 prebendary of Westminster . He was elected in September 1553 member of parliament for Looe in Cornwall in Queen Mary's first parliament, but in October 1553 a committee of the house reported that, having as prebendary of Westminster a seat in convocation, he could not sit in the House of Commons . He was also deprived of his prebend, probably as being a married man, before May 1554, and sought refuge at Strassburg and Frankfort, where he developed puritan and almost presbyterian views . He submitted, however, to the Elizabethan settlement of religion, and was rewarded with the archdeaconry of Middlesex, a canonry at Canterbury and in 156o with the deanery of St Paul's . His sermons occasionally created some stir, and on one occasion Elizabeth interrupted his sermon, telling him to stick to his text and cease slighting the crucifix . He held the deanery of St Paul's for forty-two years, surviving until the 13th of February 1602 . Nowell is believed to have composed the Catechism inserted before the Order of Confirmation in the Prayer Book of 1549, which was supplemented in 1604 and is still in use; but the evidence is not conclusive . Early in Elizabeth's reign, however, he wrote a larger catechism, to serve as a statement of Protestant principles; it was printed in 1570, and in the same year appeared his " middle " catechism, designed it would seem for the instruction of " simple curates." Nowell also established a free school at Middleton and made other benefactions for educational purposes . He was twice married, but left no children .

See

Ralph Churton, Life of Alexander Nowell (Oxford, 1809); G . Burnet, History of the Reformation (new ed., Oxford, 1865) ; and R . W . Dixon, History of the Church of England . Also the Works of John Strype; the Publications of the Parker Society; the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic; and the Diet . Nat . Biog., vol. lv .