William Bridge

1600-1670. Nonconformist* preacher. Born in Cambridgeshire and educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he also became a fellow, he served several churches in Essex and Norfolk as lecturer from 1631 to 1636. Deprived in the latter year by the bishop of Norwich, he migrated to Holland, renounced his episcopal ordination, and became the teacher of a gathered church in Rotterdam. Returning to England, he was town preacher at Yarmouth, Norfolk, and pastor of a Congregational church there. He was nominated to serve in the Westminster Assembly* and became one of its five Dissenting Brethren. He attended also the Savoy Assembly in 1658. Though having a great reputation as a preacher, he was deprived in 1661 of his Yarmouth post. At first thereafter he lived in or near London, but in 1667-68 he returned to Yarmouth to preach in conventicles. He died in East Anglia. Most of his printed works were sermons.