Forgotten Heroes 4
Dr Vernon Coleman
Robert Cawdrey
(1538-1604)
Robert Cawdrey was a schoolteacher who became country priest in Rutland more than 400 years ago. In 1565, he was ordained a deacon and in 1571 he was made rector of South Luffenham. However, Cawdrey’s enthusiasm for the principles of Puritanism got him into considerable trouble. In 1576, he was in trouble for not reading the approved texts in his church and in 1578 he performed a marriage ceremony, despite the fact that he was not authorised to do so by the church. He was suspended for this for a while. In 1587, he was in trouble again. He was taken to the Court of High Commission where he stood trial for 10 weeks for objecting to the Episcopal hierarchy. When he was deprived of his living and suspended, Cawdrey took the church to court and challenged the authority of the ecclesiastical commissioners and the legal right of the Queen to empower them. In the end, the judges decided that ‘by the ancient laws of this realm, the kingdom of England is an absolute empire and monarchy’. The judges also upheld the divine right of the Crown. A few years later Charles I would rely on this ruling and lose his head as a result. Cawdrey, with a family to feed, had to go back to teaching to make a living.
Many new words were appearing in the English language towards the end of the 16th century and Cawdrey decided that there was a need (and, perhaps, a market) for an instructional textbook to help ease the confusion. His main concern was that the upper classes were using too many foreign words and phrases and were forgetting many of the available English words. ‘(Far journied gentlemen learn new words while in foreign lands, and then powder their talke with over-sea language,’ he complained.)
It was Cawdrey and not Dr Samuel Johnson who compiled the first English dictionary. Cawdrey’s was called A Table Alphabeticall, and appeared in 1604. (Dr Samuel Johnson’s dictionary first appeared in 1755).
Cawdrey’s Table, listing 2,500 words was, he explained, designed to ‘contayne’ and teach the ‘true writing and understanding of hard...English words borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine or French’. Cawdrey’s book was sold at the publisher’s shop at the great north door of ‘Paules Church’.
Cawdrey stated that his book was designed ‘for the benefit and helpe of Ladies, Gendewomen, or any other unskilful persons’. Cawdrey had time to write his dictionary (and probably needed the royalties) because he was thrown out of the church and so we should, perhaps, be grateful to the authorities for their actions.
Cawdrie wrote several other books. While he was a rector he wrote A Short and Fruitifull Treatise of the Profit of Catechising and during his final schoolteacher phase he published A Treasurie or Store-House of Similes.
This biography is taken from the book `Vernon Coleman’s English Heroes’ which contains mini biographies of 100 of Vernon Coleman’s heroes. Some of the names are well known but there are a number of surprises. For details of the book please CLICK HERE
Copyright Vernon Coleman February 2026
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