Thomas Playfere
English theologian
Thomas Playfere (also Playford) (1561? – 2 February 1609) was an English churchman and theologian, Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at Cambridge from 1596.
Life
Born in London about 1561, he was son of William Playfere and Alice, daughter of William Wood of Bolling in Kent. He matriculated as a pensioner of St John's College, Cambridge, in December 1576, and on 5 November 1579 was admitted a scholar. He graduated B.A. in 1579–80, M.A. in 1583, B.D. in 1590, and D.D. in 1596; on 10 April 1584 he was admitted a Fellow. He contributed to the university collection of Latin elegies on Sir Philip Sidney (16 Feb 1586–7). He served the college offices of prælector topicus, 1587; rhetoric examiner, 1588, medical lecturer on Thomas Linacre's foundation; preacher, 1591; Hebrew prælector, 1593–4; senior fellow and senior dean, 1598; and principal lecturer, 1600. According to Joseph Foster he joined the Inner Temple in 1594, and in 1596 he was incorporated D.D. at Oxford.
After the death of William Whitaker, Master of St John's, Playfere and Richard Clayton were candidates for the mastership: Clayton was chosen. In December 1596 Playfere was elected Lady Margaret professor of divinity.
“Thomas Playfere” enters the record as english theologian. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Thomas, Playfere and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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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 Jul 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7793185. VIAF identifies the subject as 359478. The Library of Congress control number is no91016260. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1561, 1609, 1596 and 1576.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Playfere” 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.