Benjamin Whichcote
English theologian
Benjamin Whichcote (March 1609 – May 1683) was an English Establishment and Puritan priest,
Provost of King's College, Cambridge and leader of the Cambridge Platonists. He held that man is the "child of reason" and so not completely depraved by nature, as Puritans held. He also argued for religious toleration.
Life and career
Whichcote was born at Whichcote Hall in Stoke upon Tern, Shropshire. He entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1628, and became a fellow in 1633. In 1637, he was ordained a deacon and priest at the same time. In 1643, he married and took up priestly duties in a Cambridge-dispensed parish in North Cadbury, Somerset. In 1644, he became 19th Provost of King's College due to Parliamentary control of the universities. However, he was the only new head of house who did not subscribe to the National Covenant. In 1650, during the Interregnum, he was vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and advised Oliver Cromwell on the subject of toleration of the Jews.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1436859. VIAF identifies the subject as 59179724. The Library of Congress control number is n50019042. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1609, 1683, 1628 and 1633.
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This entry incorporates text from “Benjamin Whichcote” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.