Rev. Humphrey Sydenham (1591 – c. 1650), "Silver Tongue Sydenham", was a royalist divine, famous for his sermons.
He was born in 1591 at Dulverton in Somerset, a younger son of Humphrey I Sydenham of Combe, Dulverton in Somerset, by his first wife Jane Champneys, eldest daughter of John Champneys (1518–1569) of Uffculme, Devon, and widow of Martin Sandford of Harberton, Devon, whom she had married in 1569.
He matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, in Lent term 1606, and graduated B.A. on 24 January 1610–11. In 1613 he became a Fellow of the newly founded Wadham College, Oxford, founded posthumously by his fellow Somerset resident Nicholas II Wadham (1531–1609) and his wife. He was the first to graduate as Master of Arts from that foundation on 3 December 1613. He took priest's orders in 1621, became librarian at Wadham in 1623, and was incorporated at Cambridge in 1625. He resigned his fellowship in 1628. In the meantime he had been appointed chaplain to Lord Howard of Escrick, and on 15 December 1627 he was presented by the king to the vicarage of Ashbrittle, Somerset, holding that preferment down to 1645. On 18 May 1629 he was presented by Sir Hugh Portman to the rectory of Puckington in the same county. He was collated to the Prebend of Wedmore Tertia in Wells Cathedral in 1642, and on 14 December 1644 he was instituted to the rectory of Odcombe, Somerset, upon the presentation of the king, during the minority of his distant kinsman, Sir John Sydenham, 2nd Baronet (1643–1696) of Brympton D'Evercy, Somerset. But he held this preferment for little more than a year, when he was ejected from all his benefices by the parliamentary commissioners.
Though very devout and learned in biblical lore, Sydenham was an unbending royalist and suffered accordingly. Consummata eloquentia celeberrimus ("most famous in consummate eloquence"), he is described by Lloyd as "happy in having the tongue of men and angels" (Memoirs, p. 625). "A person of a quaint and curious style, better at practical than at school divinity", he was so eloquent and fluent a preacher that he was "commonly called Silver Tongue Sydenham" (Wood). His numerous dedications and epistles dedicatory show what a panegyrical turn he could give to his silvery periods. He appears to have died in 1650, and was buried at Dulverton. An elder brother, Roger Sydenham, matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, and entered the Middle Temple in 1607.