# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mead, William

​MEAD, WILLIAM (1628–1713), quaker, was born probably in or near London, where he became a wealthy linendraper of Fenchurch Street, and member of the Company of Merchant Taylors. He was captain of a train-band before joining the quakers early in 1670. On 14 Aug. of that year he was present at a crowded meeting in Gracechurch Street, at which William Penn was the preacher. Both were apprehended and committed to Newgate. Their memorable trial, when they boldly defended the right of free worship, began at the Old Bailey on 1 Sept. They were accused of disturbing the peace by unlawfully assembling together by agreement, and pleaded not guilty. The jury, in spite of intimidation, pronounced on 5 Sept. that Penn was not guilty of breaking the law, and that Mead was not guilty at all, but jury and prisoners were committed to Newgate. Penn's father, Admiral Sir William Penn [q. v.], is said by Croese (p. 78) to have paid fines to secure their release. A detailed account of the trial, under the title ‘The People's Ancient and Just Liberties asserted,’ was published (London, 1670) by Penn and Mead, and it is also related at length by Besse in his ‘Sufferings.’ Mead afterwards lived at Highgate, and entertained Fox there in 1677. He held a leading position among the quakers, and several times waited upon the king with George Whitehead [q. v.] and others. Mead purchased about 1684 the estate of Goosehays, in Hornchurch parish, Essex, where George Fox was a frequent visitor.
Mead wrote, in conjunction with Whitehead and others, several vindications of ‘the people called Quakers.’ One of these was delivered to the House of Lords, 21 Feb. 1701. He died at Goosehays 3 April 1713, aged 86, and was buried in the Friends' cemetery at Barking, where a headstone records the fact. He married and lost his first wife, Mary, in 1679. A child, Jonathan, died in 1680. In 1681 he married Sarah Fell, fourth daughter of Judge Thomas and Margaret Fell [q. v.] She was beautiful, an eloquent preacher, a good Hebrew scholar, the executive manager of the large household at Swarthmoor, and the correspondent of Penn and Barclay. She had been sought in marriage by Richard Lower [q. v.], court physician, whose brother Thomas married her sister Mary. Sarah Fell obtained from the king in 1670 the order for the release of her mother (then Mrs. Fox) from prison, which she herself conveyed to Lancaster. She was the first clerk of the Lancashire Women's Quarterly Meeting, and before she left Swarthmoor drew up for her sisters ‘Instructions how you may order the business in the Quarterly Women's Meeting Book.’ Her account-book of family expenditure and many letters are in the Swarthmoor MSS. She died at Goosehays, 9 June 1714, and was buried with her husband at Barking. To Nathaniel Mead, his ‘dear and onely child,’ Mead left by will his estates in London, Middlesex, Kent, Essex, and Surrey, and many legacies to the poor among quakers and others. Nathaniel Mead entered the Middle Temple at sixteen, became serjeant-at-law, and was knighted. He sold the Goosehays estate, and died in London in April 1760, aged 76 (Lond. Chron. April 1760).
[Webb's Fells of Swarthmoor Hall, 1865; Besse's Sufferings of the Quakers, i. 418, &c.; Fox's Journal, 3rd ed., numerous references; Smith's Cat.; Croese's Hist. of Quakers, 1696; the Yorkshireman, No. lxxx. p. 114; will at Somerset House, P. C. C. Leeds, 85; Swarthmoor MSS. and registers at Devonshire House.]
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