Background
The son of the Reverend John Pyle (died 1709), Rector of Stody, he was educated at Gresham"s School, Holt, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was admitted sizar on 17 May 1692, at the age of seventeen.
The son of the Reverend John Pyle (died 1709), Rector of Stody, he was educated at Gresham"s School, Holt, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was admitted sizar on 17 May 1692, at the age of seventeen.
He graduated Bachelor in 1696 and Master of Arts in 1699.
He was elected a scholar of the College later the same year. Pyle was ordained deacon on 30 May 1697 and priest on 25 September 1698, by Doctor John Moore, bishop of Norwich, whose chaplain, William Whiston, commented that Pyle was one of the two best scholars he had ever examined. He was appointed vicar of Thorpe Market in 1698.
In 1701, he was appointed minister of Street Nicholas"s Chapel in King"s Lynn.
He was lecturer and curate of Street Margaret"s, King"s Lynn, from 1711, and Rector of Outwell (1709-1718), Bexwell (1708-1709), and Watlington (1710-1726). Pyle was a strong Whig, and the accession of George I, together with the fact that King"s Lynn was represented in parliament by the prime minister, Robert Walpole, gave Pyle hope of preferment in the church.
After Hoadly became bishop of Salisbury, Pyle gained the living of Durnford, in Wiltshire. Pyle preached in London, and his and another volume of paraphrases gained the support of dissenters and latitudinarians such as Samuel Chandler, Samuel Clarke, and Thomas Herring.
But Pyle never received additional preferment, even after Herring became Archbishop of Canterbury.
In 1732, he exchanged his old livings for the vicarage of Street Margaret"s, King"s Lynn, which he retained until 1755, when he retired to Swaffham and died on 31 December 1756. Pyle married Mary Rolfe (1681/2–1748) of King"s Lynn, in 1701, and they had three sons, all clergymen. Edmund (1702–1776) was lecturer at Street Nicholas"s, King"s Lynn, archdeacon of York, chaplain to Bishop Benjamin Hoadly and chaplain to the King.
Thomas (1713–1807), became a canon of Salisbury and of Winchester.
Philip (1724–1799), was Rector of North Lynn.