Byfield, Adoniram

BYFIELD, ADONIRAM: Puritan and Presbyterian; b. probably at Chester, before 1615, the son of Nicholas Byfield; d. in London 1660. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and chosen chaplain to a regiment of Parliament's army in 1642. In 1643 he was appointed one of the two scribes of the Westminster Assembly, but was not a member of that body. The manuscript minutes (edited by Mitchel and Struthers, 1874), now in the Williams Library, University Hall, Gordon Square, London, are in his handwriting. He also edited, by authority of Parliament, the various papers in the controversy between the Westminster Assembly and the Dissenting Brethren, published London, 1648, including Reasons Presented by the Dissenting Brethren against Certain Propositions concerning Presbyterian Government, The Answer of Assemby of Divines, Papers for Accumulation, and The Papers and Answers of the Dissenting Brethren and the Committee of the Assembly of Divines. He was rector of Fulham in Middlesex (1644?) and vicar of Fulham (1645?–1657), subsequently rector of Collingbourn-Ducis in Wiltshire.

C. A. Briggs.