John Layfield (also spelled Laifield) (died 6 November 1617) was an English scholar and Bible translator.

Life

Layfield was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood before proceeding to

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

, where he was a Fellow from 1585 to 1603. He was chaplain to George Clifford, the 3rd

Earl of Cumberland The title of Earl of Cumberland was created in the Peerage of England in 1525 for the 11th Baron de Clifford.''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press'', 2004. It became extinct in 1643. The dukedom of Cumberland was cr ...

on his 1592 voyage to

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

. Rector of St Clement Danes in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

from 1602 until his death in 1617, he was appointed a founding fellow of Chelsea College by

King James I of England James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until ...

in 1610. He was also a member of the "First Westminster Company" charged by James with the translation of the first 12 books of the King James Version of the Bible. It was said that "being skilled in architecture, his judgment was much relied on for the fabric of the tabernacle and temple." He died in

, on 6 November 1617.

References

Sources

*McClure, Alexander. (1858) ''The Translators Revived: A Biographical Memoir of the Authors of the English Version of the Holy Bible''. Mobile, Alabama: R. E. Publications (republished by the Marantha Bible Society, 1984 ASIN B0006YJPI8 ) *Nicolson, Adam. (2003) ''God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible.'' New York: HarperCollins *Fuller, Thomas. (1842) ''The Church History of Britain, from the Birth of Jesus Christ Until the Year MDCXLVIII.'' London:

Thomas Tegg Thomas Tegg (1776–1845) was a British bookseller and publisher. Early life Tegg was the son of a grocer, born at Wimbledon, Surrey, on 4 March 1776, and was left an orphan at the age of five. He was sent to a boarding school at Galashiels in ...

. 16th-century explorers 16th-century English theologians 17th-century English theologians 16th-century births Year of birth missing 1617 deaths 17th-century English Anglican priests Translators of the King James Version 17th-century translators Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge English chaplains English explorers English Anglican theologians 16th-century Protestant theologians 17th-century Protestant theologians {{ChurchofEngland-clergy-stub