page_title: Richard Hollinworth
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Richard Hollinworth / Life
caption_attribution_description: English: Sacred Trinity Church Sacred Trinity church was originally built as a chapel-of-ease to serve the growing population of Salford in 1635. It is Salford's oldest church and is a grade II listed building with many original features. Most of the current building dates from 1752 but it was restored in 1877-74 and adapted for more flexible use in the 1980’s. Painted by LS Lowry in 1925 it is one of the only views in his paintings that remains unchanged. William Webb Ellis was Christened here (famed for inventing the game of Rugby in 1823).
context_page_description: Richard Hollinworth was an English clergyman of presbyterian views, an influential figure in North-West England in the 1640s.
context_section_description: The son of Francis Hollinworth and Margaret Wharmby his wife, he was born at Manchester, and was baptised on 15 November 1607. He was educated at the Manchester grammar school and Magdalene College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1626–7, and M.A. in 1630. After ordination he became curate of Middleton, near Manchester, under Abdias Assheton. 
  At the consecration of Sacred Trinity Chapel in Salford, on 20 May 1635, Hollinworth preached the sermon, and after the resignation of Thomas Case, who held the living for a short time, he was appointed minister there. He was in that position in 1636, and until a short time before 1649, holding the preferment along with offices at Manchester Collegiate Church. In 1643 he is styled chaplain of the collegiate church, and in the same year succeeded William Bourne in the fellowship there. During the suspension of the corporate body by parliament he officiated, along with Richard Heyrick, the warden, as a "minister"; the college was dissolved in 1650. The "protestation" of the people of Salford in 1642 was taken before him as minister of the town. In 1644 he is named in an ordinance of parliament for ordaining ministers in Lancashire. During the plague outbreak of 1645 in Manchester he worked among the people, Heyrick being absent in London at the Assembly of Divines.
  Hollinworth instituted a weekly lecture against the Independents, and became involved in controversy with them. By the exertions of Heyrick and Hollinworth and their friends the presbyterian discipline was established in Lancashire by an ordinance of parliament dated 2 October 1646, and the first meeting was held in the following month at Preston. Hollinworth's name was the second of those signing the Harmonious Consent of the Lancashire ministers with the ministers of London, in 1648, in which religious toleration was condemned.
  After the battle of Worcester (September 1651) Hollinworth was one of the Lancashire ministers who were arrested on a charge of being engaged in Christopher Love's plot against the government: others were Heyrick and John Angier. He was released after a short imprisonment, having been held in Liverpool with Angier, John Harrison and William Meek; and returned to Manchester. Hollinworth was a prominent figure at a meeting held at Warrington to consider the question of taking the oath called the Engagement, requiring the people to be faithful to the Commonwealth. In the Manchester classis he generally acted as moderator during Heyrick's absence. He was named in the parliamentary ordinance of 29 August 1654 as a commissioner for ejecting scandalous and ignorant ministers and schoolmasters in Lancashire. When Humphrey Chetham drew up his will for the foundation of what now is Chetham's Library, he nominated Hollinworth one of his feoffees.
  Hollinworth died suddenly on 3 November 1656, aged 49, and was buried in Manchester Collegiate Church, where his wife, Margaret, had been interred two years before. At a meeting of the Manchester classis held on the same day it was agreed that a fast should be observed at Manchester. Edward Gee of Eccleston and John Tilsley were asked to preach.
caption: Sacred Trinity Church in Salford today: the tower dates from the original construction[3]
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