Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hildersam, Samuel
HILDERSAM or HILDERSHAM, SAMUEL (1594?–1674), nonconformist divine, only son of Arthur Hildersam [q. v.], was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, about 1594. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and became fellow and B.D. In 1628 he was presented by William Cokayne, a merchant in Austin Friars, to the rectory of West Felton, Shropshire, having been ordained by an Irish bishop, without subscription. The reputation he attained was that of a good preacher and sound expositor, of quiet habits, kindly to the younger clergy, and ‘very much a gentleman.’ He was a member, but not an original member, of the Westminster Assembly, which he seldom attended. His signature to the testimony of Shropshire ministers in 1648 is evidence of his presbyterianism. Ejected from West Felton by the Uniformity Act of 1662, he made no attempt to continue his ministry, but retired to the house of a relative at Erdington, a hamlet in the parish of Aston, near Birmingham, Warwickshire. Here he died in April 1674, at the age of eighty, and was buried in Aston churchyard, without funeral sermon, by his own order. He married Mary daughter of Sir Henry Goodyear of Polesworth, Warwickshire, who survived him. Baxter and Matthew Henry speak highly of his abilities and character. He is the author of dedicatory epistles to the two posthumous volumes of his father's sermons and lectures.
[Calamy's Account, 1713, pp. 566 sq.; Calamy's Continuation, 1727, p. 723; Neal's Hist. of the Puritans, 1822, iii. 47; Hildersam's Works; Williams's Life of P. Henry, 1825, p. 458.]