William Coward (merchant)

William Coward (1648–1738) was a London merchant in the Jamaica trade, remembered for his support of Dissenters, particularly his educational philanthropy.

After a period in Jamaica, where he built up an estate, he retired to Walthamstow in 1685, and built an Independent meeting-house there, with Hugh Farmer as the first minister. He became known for strict household arrangements, his doors being closed against visitors at eight o'clock in the evening. He was spoken of as eccentric, in his old age, when anecdotes circulated; and he had a very public quarrel with Thomas Bradbury.

He instituted a course of lectures On the most important Doctrines of the Gospel, in the church of Paved Alley, Lime Street; twenty-six in all, published in two volumes in 1730-1, were delivered, and became known as the "Lime Street Lectures". A total of nine preachers took part, among them Abraham Taylor and John Gill. (This was not the first lecture series Coward had sponsored: the first was at Little St. Helen's in 1726.) A third course took place at Bury Street, St. Mary-Axe, in 1733, this last set being printed in 1735. These lecture series retained their influence a century later, Samuel Miller writing that "The Lime Street and Bury Street Lectures, contain some of the most able, useful, and pious disquisitions of the English dissenting divines."

In the spring of 1734 he contemplated founding a dissenting academy at Walthamstow, for the education of children of Dissenters for the ministry, and the post of professor of divinity was offered to Philip Doddridge, after hesitations over whether Taylor should have the position. The scheme itself came to nothing, although Coward continued, while alive, to assist the poorer ministers and to aid in the teaching of their children. He died at Walthamstow on 28 April 1738, aged ninety.

His property was valued at £150,000, and the bulk was said to have been left in charity. Coward's will is dated 25 November 1735. Property was left in trust ‘for the education and training up of young men … between 15 and 22, to qualify them for the ministry of the gospel among the protestant dissenters.’ There were four trustees of the Coward Trust, including initially Isaac Watts and Daniel Neal, who were to take care that the students should be instructed according to ‘the assembly's catechism, and in that method of church discipline which is practised by the congregational churches.’

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