John Barnston

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John Barnston, D.D. (died 1645) was an English clergyman. He was the second son of William Barnston of Churton, Cheshire, and studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he became a fellow. In 1600–01 he was appointed to the prebend of Bishopstone, Salisbury. In 1615, while chaplain to Lord Ellesmere, then chancellor of England, he received the Doctor of Divinity degree. In 1628 he endowed land on the Strand in London—the site of the former White Hart inn—with £6 a year to support a Hebrew lecturer at Brasenose College. He also left property to the town of Salisbury. Fuller described him as a generous householder with a cheerful and peaceful disposition, and tells an anecdote to illustrate this. Wood notes that Barnston lived to see himself deprived of his spiritual offices. There are memorial tablets in Salisbury Cathedral to his wife (d. 1625) and to Barnston himself. A memorial inscription in the cathedral marks his death in 1645.