Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hesketh, Henry
HESKETH, HENRY (1637?–1710), divine, was born in Cheshire about 1637. In June 1653 he was admitted a commoner of Brasenose College, Oxford, and proceeded B.A. on 13 Oct. 1656 (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 192). He was rector of Charlwood, Surrey, and chaplain in ordinary to Charles II when on 11 Nov. 1678 he was chosen vicar of St. Helen, Bishopsgate. Manning and Bray wrongly give the date of his institution to Charlwood as 1685 (Surrey, ii. 193). He also became chaplain to William III. He was a popular preacher, and published numerous sermons. In 1689–90 he was nominated bishop of Killala, but was not consecrated, and in January 1694 he resigned the vicarage of St. Helen (J. E. Cox, Annals of St. Helen's, p. 55). He appears to have died in December 1710. He married, first, in 1662, Sarah, daughter of Thomas Mulcaster, rector of Charlwood; and secondly, in 1687, Mary Pillet of St. Helen, Bishopsgate (Chester, London Marriage Licenses, ed. Foster, col. 672).
He was author of: 1. ‘Piety the best Rule of Orthodoxy: or an Essay upon this proposition, that the conduciveness of doctrines to holiness, or vice, is the best rule for private Christians to judge the truth or falsehood of them by, in a letter to his honoured friend, H. M.,’ 8vo, London, 1680. 2. ‘The Charge of Scandal and giving offence by Conformity refelled and reflected back upon Separation,’ [anon.], 4to, London, 1683; also in vol. i. of ‘A Collection of Cases … written to recover Dissenters to the Communion of the Church of England,’ 4to, London, 1685. 3. ‘An Exhortation to frequent receiving the Holy Sacrament … being the substance of several sermons preached in St. Hellens Church, London,’ 12mo, London, 1684. The work cited by Wood (Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 604–5) as ‘The Case of Eating and Drinking unworthily stated, and the Scruples of coming to the Holy Sacrament upon the danger of unworthiness satisfied,’ &c., 8vo, London, 1689, is apparently another edition.
[Manning and Bray's Surrey, ii. 275; Newcourt's Repertorium, ii. 365.]