Joshua Oldfield

Joshua Oldfield (2 December 1656 – 8 November 1729), was an English presbyterian divine.

He was the second son of John Oldfield or Otefield, and was born at Carsington, Derbyshire, on 2 December 1656. His father gave him his early training; he studied philosophy at Lincoln College, Oxford, and also at Christ's College, Cambridge, under Ralph Cudworth and Henry More (1614–1687). Refusing subscription, he did not graduate. He began life as chaplain to Sir John Gell (d 1689) of Hopton Hall, Derbyshire. Next he was tutor to a son of Paul Foley, afterwards speaker of the House of Commons. Foley offered him a living, but, after deliberation, he resolved to remain a nonconformist.

He then became chaplain, in Pembrokeshire, to Susan, daughter of John Holles, second earl of Clare, and widow of Sir John Lort. He crossed to Dublin, but declined an engagement there. Returning to England, he was for a short time assistant to John Turner (died 1692), an ejected presbyterian, then ministering in Fetter Lane. He received presbyterian ordination, with three others, at Mansfield on 18 March 1687, his father and his uncle Richard Porter taking part in the ceremony. Shortly afterwards he became the first pastor of a presbyterian congregation at Tooting, Surrey, said to have been partly founded by Defoe.

Before February 1691 he had become minister of the presbyterian congregation at Oxford, where he renewed an intimacy with Edmund Calamy, begun at Tooting. He had "a small auditory and very slender encouragement, but took a great deal of pains". He was shy at making friends with undergraduates; Calamy used to get him to meet them at the coffee-house, when "they found he had a great deal more in him than they imagined". With Henry Dodwell the elder and John Wallis, he formed friendships. At Oxford he took part in a public discussion on infant baptism, which considerably raised his reputation.

In 1694 he moved to Coventry as co-pastor with William Tong of the presbyterian congregation at the Leather Hall. Here he started (before May 1695) an academy for training students for the ministry, in which Tong gave him some help. On 6 October 1697 he was cited to the ecclesiastical court for public teaching without license from the bishop. The case went from Coventry to Lichfield, and in November Oldfield went up to London and obtained a stay of ecclesiastical proceedings, transferring the suit to the king's bench. Here it was argued for several terms; but Oldfield got the matter laid before William III, and the suit was dropped on an intimation from the king that "he was not pleas'd with such prosecutions".

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