Adam Littleton

Adam Littleton (1627–1694) was an English cleric and lexicographer.

Born on 2 November 1627, he was the son of Thomas Littleton, vicar of Halesowen, Worcestershire. He was educated on the foundation at Westminster School, end was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1644. He was a conspicuous opponent of the parliamentary visitation of the University of Oxford, and was expelled from the university on 2 November 1648. He apparently was allowed to return, and joined in May 1651 with three other students in a petition for the restitution of their scholarships.

Littleton became an usher at Westminster School, taught in other places, and then succeeded to the post of second master at Westminster in 1658. After the Restoration of 1660 he established a school at Chelsea, London. On 3 February 1669 he was admitted rector of Chelsea, and accumulated the degrees in divinity on 12 July 1670. During the same year Charles II made him a royal chaplain, and gave him a grant of the reversion of the head-mastership of Westminster School on the death of Richard Busby. In September 1674 he became prebendary of Westminster Abbey, in 1683 rector of Overton, Hampshire and in 1685 he was licensed to the church of St. Botolph, Aldersgate, where he served for about four years. He was also chaplain to Prince Rupert of the Rhine.

Littleton died on 30 June 1694, and was buried in Chelsea Church where there was a monument to his memory.

A Latin poem Tragi-Comœdia Oxoniensis, ridiculing the parliamentary visitation of Oxford, has been ascribed both Littleton, and to John Carrick, also of Christ Church.

Littleton's major work, Linguæ Latinæ Liber Dictionarius quadripartitus. A Latin Dictionary in four parts, was published at London in 1673; other editions appeared in 1678, 1685, 1695, 1723, and a sixth edition in 1735, months before the issue of Robert Ainsworth's Dictionary which took its place. The editions of 1678 and 1695 were enlarged, and were accompanied with chronological tables of events down to his own time. Littleton worked on a Greek lexicon, but died before its completion.

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