Wakefield, Gilbert

Wakefield, Gilbert first a minister of the Church of England, then a Unitarian, was born at Nottingham, England, Feb. 22, 1756. He was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1776, and was elected to a fellowship the same year. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1778, and appointed curate of Stockport, in Cheshire. In August of the same year he left Stockport and became curate of St. Peter's at Liverpool, and in 1779 was chosen classical tutor of-the Dissenting Academy at Warrington, in Lancashire, where he remained until 1783. In the latter year he removed to Bramcote, near Nottingham, and in 1790 went to Hackney as tutor in a Dissenting academy, where he remained one year. The remainder of his life was spent in literary pursuits. He died Sept. 9, 1801. Among his most important works are, An Inquiry into the Opinions of the Christian Writers of the Three First Centuries concerning the Person of Christ: — Four Marks of Antichrist, etc. (1778): Internal Marks of the Evidence of the Christian Religion (1779): — Translation of the New Testament, with Notes (1791): — The Spirit of Christianity Compared with the Spirit of the Times in Great Britain (1796): — and An Answer to the Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine (eod.).