William Alleine

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William Alleine (1614–October 1677) was an English church minister, the younger brother of Richard Alleine. He was born in Ditcheat, Somerset, and was educated first by his father before going to Oxford, where he attended St Alban Hall and earned a B.A. and M.A. After university he served as private chaplain in a noble house in London. At the start of the First English Civil War he lived in Ilchester and advised senior officers; he wrote letters to them and was proclaimed a traitor by the Cavaliers, who saw him as opposing the king. He endured plunder and threats, and had several narrow escapes.

Alleine later moved to Bristol, where he suffered further mistreatment. In the government’s Commission of 1650 he is described as “a learned, orthodox, able divine, the present incumbent,” a designation repeated in 1653. When the Act of Uniformity was passed, he did not hesitate to leave his living, though his parishioners deeply respected him and he continued to minister privately to a small group. A few years after his ejection he returned to Bristol to continue his ministry and later went to Yeovil in Somerset. He died there in October 1677, aged 63. Alleine published two books on the Millennium, and after his death several discourses appeared as Six Discourses on the Unsearchable Riches of Christ.