1718       

1st. January Wednesday
Richard Wroe, D.D., Warden of the Collegiate Church, died January 1. He was born at Heaton Gate, in the parish of Prestwich, August 21, 1641, and educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he proceeded D.D. in 1688. He was appointed fellow of the college March 9, 1674. His happy talent of preaching in the pulpit gave him the distinguishing character of “Silver-tongued Wroe.” He had an interest in natural philosophy, and was a correspondent of Flamsteed. He wrote The Beauty of Unity, 1682; Righteousness Encouraged, 1684. There is a portrait, with a biography and bibliography, in the Palatine Note-book, vol. ii., p. 133.(7)

7th. November Friday
“One of the earliest burials in St. Ann’s was that of John Best. His epitaph runs thus: ‘John, son of Luke Best, of Manchester, limner, buried November ye 7th, 1718.” (Bardsley’s Memorials, p. 31.)(7)

1718
Stretford Chapel was rebuilt.(7)

1718
Samuel Peploe, Vicar of Preston, a Whig, was appointed warden by George I., but Dr. Francis Gastrell, Bishop of Chester, being a Tory, refused to confirm him in his office. The charter directed that the warden should have a degree in divinity, and when the Archbishop of Canterbury gave Peploe a Lambeth diploma the bishop still refused on the pretext of the insufficiency of this degree. It was not till three years after the nomination of Peploe that the Court of King’s Bench decided in this matter. The decision was in favour of the Crown. (See under 1722.) It is said that Peploe owed his advance in the Church to the following circumstance: Being required to perform divine service before the Pretender, at Preston, in 1715, he had the courage to pray for the reigning family. The clergy, who were chiefly Jacobites, were frequently at war with him, and whilst their sermons preached the divine right of kings, his were eulogies of the glorious Revolution. (Hibbert-Ware’s Foundations; Halley’s Lancashire.)(7)