Background
Broclesby was born at Tealby, near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire. His father was George Brocklesby, gentleman.
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Richard Brocklesby
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He was educated at Caistor Grammar School, and as a sizar at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1657 and Master of Arts
Career
In 1660. Some time between 1662 and 1674 he was instituted to the rectory of Folkingham, Lincolnshire. Number sympathy with the Jacobite party is to be inferred from his declining to abjure. Brocklesby died at Stamford in 1714 (probably in February), and was buried at Folkingham.
Brocklesby"s will (dated 3 August 1713, codicils 30 January and 7 February 1714, proved 13 August 1714) was to have been included in the second volume of Peck"s Desiderata Curiosa (1735), but was left for a third volume, which never appeared.
Out of considerable landed property in Lincolnshire and Huntingdonshire, a house at Stamford, et cetera, Brocklesby founded schools at Folkingham and Kirkby-on-Bain, Lincolnshire, and Pidley, Huntingdonshire, to teach poor children their catechism and to read the Bible. The charitable bequests are very numerous, and some rather singular.
A complicated scheme for the distribution of bibles in five counties was to come into effect "if the propagation of the gospel in the Eastern parts totally faileth, or doth not considerably succeed and prosper". A bequest of £10 to William Whiston was revoked by the first codicil.
Brocklesby left two libraries.
That at Stamford was sold by auction. The catalogue, Stamford, 1714, contains the titles of many rare volumes of the Socinian school. His library in London was left to be disposed of at the discretion of John Heptinstall, his printer, and William Turner, schoolmaster of Stamford.
