Born at Penton, Hampshire
Born 'according to my best calculation' on the 5th of the second month 1628 at Penton by Weyhill, near Andover; his father a substantial yeoman, his mother a religious woman among the Puritans.
1628–1710 · Penton, near Andover, Hampshire, England
William Crouch
Burrough's Amanuensis — A London Upholsterer's Memoir of Plague, Fire and Persecution
“When I heard for myself the testimony of Truth declared, it was to my outward ear as a very lovely song.” — William Crouch
Life & Ministry
Apprenticed in Cornhill
Came to London and bound himself apprentice in Cornhill near the Old Exchange, later settling in Spread-Eagle Court, Finch Lane.
Convinced in London
Came 'in some measure convinced of the everlasting Truth of God, revealed and made known to a despised people called Quakers' after hearing the testimony declared for himself.
The Poultry Compter
Chosen a scavenger, refused the oath and was committed to the Poultry Compter; three months later he was imprisoned there again over a parish rate for about a year and three quarters, sending nine Queries on tithes to the priest Samuel Clark from prison in 1662.
The Gatehouse in the Plague Year
Taken at Peel meeting and committed to the Gatehouse at Westminster for refusing a forty-shilling fine, where 'many prisoners died of the sickness, four or five in one night'.
Burned Out in the Great Fire
His dwelling-house in Finch Lane was burned with the parish of St Bennet Fink; he lived afterward at Devonshire House and then in Gracechurch Street.
Fined Under the Conventicle Act
Convicted as 'William Crouch, upholsterer' for a meeting in White Hart Court and fined ten pounds; a second warrant from the recorder Thomas Jenner followed in April 1684.
Advice to His Children
Wrote a paper of counsel to his children on the 7th of the second month 1709: 'keep Truth, and it will keep you, and give you an inheritance with the saints in light'.
Death
Ruth Crouch died on the 20th of the second month 1710, aged seventy-two; William departed this life on the 13th of the eleventh month 1710, 'aged eighty years'.
Connections & Relationships
Edward Burrough
Spiritual Father and AmanuensisCrouch stood to Burrough 'even as a child to a father', conversed with him often, and 'wrote several things from him, as he dictated them, which were since printed in the collection of his works'; he records Burrough's arrest at the Bull and Mouth in 1662 and death in Newgate.
Francis Howgill
Heard Him PreachHowgill and Burrough, 'the first that declared Truth publicly' in London, were frequenting the city's meetings when Crouch was convinced in 1656; he calls them 'the apostles of this city'.
George Whitehead
Fellow SuffererWent with Whitehead to Archbishop Sancroft at Lambeth to complain of perjured informers, and preserved Whitehead's 1664 epistle from the White Lion prison in Southwark in his memoir.
John Crook
Sent His TractFrom the Poultry Compter in 1662 Crouch had John Crook's tract A Touch Stone delivered to the priest Samuel Clark along with his own Queries.
George Fox
Convinced His WifeHis wife Ruth Brown was convinced on reading an epistle given forth by George Fox; Crouch names Fox first among the ministers sent to London and refers his readers to Fox's Journal.
Richard Hubberthorne
ContemporaryNamed among the ministers who came to London in 1654 and 1655, and recorded as the bearer of George Fox the younger's epistle to Charles II.
Available Works
Memoirs of William Crouch
ProposedHis own 'brief historical account, under his own hand, of his convincement', with remarks on the London persecutions, plague and fire, published after his death with a preface by Richard Claridge and reprinted in the Friends' Library, volume 11 (1847).
The Enormous Sin of Covetousness Detected
ProposedA treatise named in Richard Claridge's preface, to which Claridge prefixed a recommendatory epistle.