1626 Lady Margaret professor of divinity, which he held, according to custom, with a canonry of Worcester Cathedral. These posts he held till 1637. At first his religious views were Calvinistic, but he changed his opinions and became an active ally of Archbishop Laud, who promoted him to the deanery of Lichfield in 1638, to the rectory of Stow-on-the-Wold in 1637, and to the deanery of Christ Church in 1638. Fell continued the architectural improvements in the cathedral and college projected by his predecessor, Duppa, and to his energy and taste the college owes the fine staircase leading to the hall. He was always active in university affairs. On 15 Aug. 1637 he wrote to Laud about the excessive number of alehouses and the like in Oxford, but on more than one occasion he incurred severe rebukes from Laud for setting his authority as head of a college in opposition to the proctors and other public officials of the university. On the outbreak of the civil wars he became a conspicuous royalist, and after serving the office of vice-chancellor in 1645 and 1646 was reappointed in 1647. Soon after his reappointment the parliamentary visitors came to Oxford. In September Fell was summoned before them; he declined to attend, was imprisoned, and on his release in November was deprived of all his offices in the university. He retired to the rectory of Sunningwell, near Abingdon, which he bad held since 21 Sept. 1625, and died there on 1 Feb. 1648-9 from the shock caused by learning of Charles I's execution. He was buried in his church. He rebuilt the front of his parsonage. He published : 1. 'Primitiae, sive oratio habita Oxoniae: in schola Theologiae, 9 Nov. an. 1626,' Oxford, 1637. 2. 'Concio Latina ad Baccalaureos die cinerum in Coloss. ii. 8,' Oxford, 1627. Fell married Margaret, daughter of Thomas Wyld, esq., of Worceester, by whom he was the father of John Fell [q. v.], dean of Christ Church and bishop of Oxford, and of several daughters. Fell's portrait is at Christ Church.
[Wood's Athenae Oxon. (Bliss) iii. 212; Welch's Alumni Oxon, p.70; Laud's Works, vol, v. passim; Visitation of Oxfoed, ed. Burrows (Camd. Soc); Walker's Sufferings, pt. ii. pp.102-3; Newcourt's Diocese of London, i. 222.]
FELL, THOMAS (1598–1658), vice-chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, born in 1598 at Hawkeswell, near Ulverston, was the son of George Fell, a gentleman of ancient Lancashire family. He was admitted student of Gray's Inn in 1623, called to the bar in 1631, and practised successfully for several years. In 1632 he married Margaret Askew [see Fell, Margaret], by whom he had nine children, and resided at Swarthmore Hall, near Dalton-in-Furness, his paternal property. In 1641 he was placed on the commission of the peace for Lancashire, when some royalists were removed, and in the following year he was appointed one of the parliamentary sequestrators for the county. In 1645 he was elected to parliament for the city of Lancaster, and on the remodelling of the church in the following year his name appears on the list of laymen for the presbytery of Furness. In 1648 he was made by the Protector a commissioner for the safety of the county, and in 1649 he was nominated vice-chancellor of the duchy and attorney for the county palatine. In 1650–1 he was chosen a bencher of Gray's Inn, and is recorded as being at that time a judge of assize for the Chester and North Wales circuit. Fell was considered a leading puritan in the district of Furness, and practised hospitality with his wife's assistance. When, during his absence on circuit in 1652, the family was converted by Fox, Fell hastened home and was met by Fox, who explained his doctrines. Although Fell never embraced quakerism, he granted the use of Swarthmore Hall for the Friends to meet in, and frequently sat in an adjoining room with the door open, so as to afford them the protection of his presence. His wife says, ‘He was very loving to Friends.’ In 1652 he went the northern circuit with President Bradshaw. In 1653 he was, with certain other justices, directed to prevent royalists landing or gathering in Cumberland or Lancashire, and at the end of that year he was, with Bradshaw, appointed a commissioner for reviving the duchy jurisdiction at Westminster. In 1654 he was appointed one of the commissioners for keeping the seal of the county of Lancaster. From a letter written to him by Thomas Aldam in 1654 it appears that his favour to quakers had made him very unpopular; but in 1655 he was directed to proceed to London to determine cases in the duchy court at Westminster. For several years before his death Fell withdrew from parliamentary life, disapproving of the Protector's assumption of authority in civil and religious matters; and although Cromwell is believed to have made several overtures to him, he still declined to take any active part in the government. He died at Swarthmore on 8 Oct. 1658, and was buried in Ulverston Church by torchlight. The record of his burial states that he was chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. He left one son and seven daughters, one of whom, Sarah Fell, a quaker minister, was noted not only for her beauty, but also for her eloquence and knowledge of Hebrew. She married one Mead. By his will
