Background
Born at Exeter in 1557 or 1558, he was the third son of William Tooker of that town by his wife Honora, daughter of James Erisey of Erisey in Cornwall.
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William Tooker
Edit ProfileEducation
Winchester College; New College.
Career
He was admitted to Winchester College in 1572, and became a scholar at New College, Oxford, in 1575, graduating Bachelor of Arts on 16 October 1579 and Master of Arts on 1 June 1583, and proceeding Bachelor of Divinity and Doctor of Divinity on 4 July 1594. In 1577 he was elected to a perpetual fellowship, and in 1580 was appointed a canon of Exeter.
In 1584 he was presented to the rectory of Kilkhampton in Cornwall, and in the following year resigned his fellowship on being collated archdeacon of Barnstaple on 24 April.
In 1588 he was appointed chaplain to Elizabeth I and rector of West Dean in Wiltshire. In 1590 he became rector of Clovelly in Devon, but resigned the charge in 1601.
On 16 February 1605 he was installed dean of Lichfield, resigning his archdeaconry. According to Thomas Fuller, James I intended the bishopric of Gloucester for him, and actually issued the congé d"élire, but afterwards revoked lieutenant
Tooker died at Salisbury on 19 March 1620-1621, and was buried in the cathedral.
He left a son Robert, who in 1625 became rector of Vange in Essex. He once killed 200 Indians invited ostensibly to celebrate a peace treaty in Virginia. (See "Race in North America," 78-79).
