minster, and from 1596 till 1605 dean of Christ Church. In the last capacity he arbitrarily compelled the members of the college to forego 'their allowance of commons' in exchange for two shillings a week. Some of those who resisted the innovation he expelled; others he sent before the council, and others he imprisoned (State Papers, Dom. Eliz. cclxii. 40). On 7 July 1598 he became vicar of Islip, and in the following October vicar of Wittenham Abbas, Berkshire. He was one of the six deans who attended the Hampton Court conference in 1604, and supplied notes for Barlow's account of the conference (Barlow, Sum and Substance of the Conference, Epistle to Reader). In 1604 he was appointed one of the Oxford committee deputed to translate part of the New Testament, and in the convocation of the same year was elected prolocutor of the lower house.
In October 1604 Ravis was appointed bishop of Gloucester, and was consecrated on 17 March 1604-5. On 15 Feb. 1605 he received a grant to hold in commendam with his bishopric the deanery of Christ Church, his Westminster prebend, and the parsonages of Islip and Wittenham. 'He proved a great benefactor to the episcopal palaces and the vineyard house, near Gloucester city, made conduits to bring water to the palace, and paved it, and built much of it anew, and spent a great deal there in hospitality' (Willis, Cathedrals, p. 713). (State Papers, Dom. James I, xii.) On 18 May 1607 Ravis was translated to the see of London, and installed on 2 June. Like his predecessor, Bancroft, 'as soon as seated he began to persecute nonconformists;' and declared, '"by the help of Jesus, I will not leave one preacher in my diocese who doth not subscribe and conform"' (Brook, Puritans, ii. 232-3; State Papers, Dom. James I, xlvii. 24). Ravis died on 14 Dec. 1609, and was buried in the north aisle of St. Paul's (Dugdale, St. Paul's, p. 55).
[Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 28, 242, 926; Le Neve's Fasti; Camden's Annals of James I; Will in Prerogative Court; Strype's Annals, n. i. 5-54, iv. 552, Whitgift, ii. 350, 492; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Welch's Alumni Westmonast.; Lansd. MS. 983, f. 149; Oxf. Univ. Registers, ed. Clark; Wood's Athenae Oxon. ii. 849; Willis's Cathedrals; State Papers, Dom.]
RAWDON, CHRISTOPHER (1780–1858), unitarian benefactor, elder son of Christopher Rawdon (d. February 1822), was born at Halifax on 13 April 1780. His father, sixth in succession of both his names, owned mills at Underbank, near Todmorden, Yorkshire. Rawdon was educated in Switzerland, and at Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. In 1793 his father met, at Falmouth, a Portuguese correspondent, and, in view of linguistic advantages, they agreed to exchange sons for a year. The elder Rawdon despatched home the following letter: ‘Dear Wife,—Deliver to the bearer thy first-born. Christopher Rawdon.’ After a year at Lisbon, and further schooling at Mansfield, Rawdon in 1797 became manager at Underbank. In 1807 he removed to Portugal as representative of his father's firm, and held this position till 1822, when he settled in Liverpool. He was a successful man of business, a member of the Liverpool town council for three years, and a borough and county magistrate. In politics he was an active liberal, in religion a unitarian. The removal of unitarians from the Hewley trust [see Hewley, Sarah] had deprived their congregation in the north of England of pecuniary grants. Rawdon projected a new fund, which he started in June 1853 by a donation of 1,000l., his brother James (d. 1855, aged 73) giving a like sum; both contributions were afterwards doubled. An appeal by circular, of 20 Jan. 1854, raised the fund to 18,820l., which was put in trust in 1856 under the name of ‘ministers' stipend augmentation fund,’ otherwise known as the Rawdon Fund. It now amounts to 48,000l. besides an annual subscription list of 150l. The application of the fund is limited to congregations north of the Trent. Rawdon died at Elm House, Anfield, Liverpool, on 22 Oct. 1858, and was buried at Toxteth Park Chapel, Liverpool. There is a monument to his memory in Renshaw Street Chapel, Liverpool. He married, on 23 Oct. 1821, Charlotte, daughter of Rawdon Briggs, banker, of Halifax.
[Christian Reformer, 1856, pp. 570 sq., 1858, pp. 711, 737 sq.; Davis's Ancient Chapel of Toxteth Park, 1884, p. 55; Evans's Hist. of Renshaw Street Chapel, 1887, p. 161; Essex Hall Year Book, 1896, p. 63.]
RAWDON, Sir GEORGE (1604–1684), first Baronet of Moira, born in November 1604, was the only son of Francis Rawdon (1581?–1668) of Rawdon Hall, near Leeds. His mother, Dorothy, daughter of William Aldborough, was married in 1603 and died in 1660. George went to court at the end of James I's or the beginning of Charles I's reign, and became private secretary to Secretary Conway. In 1625 he was sent to the Hague on business connected with Charles's promised subsidy to the protestant allies. After Conway's death, in 1631, Rawdon was attached to Conway's son, the second Viscount Conway, who had a large estate in Down.
