Tillotson, John Robert (1630–1694)

English churchman, archbishop of Canterbury 1691–94. He was originally a Presbyterian, but was ordained a Anglian priest in 1660, and accepted the 1662 Act of Uniformity. A staunch anti-Catholic, he was renowned as a pulpit orator, and his published sermons are famous for their prose style and stirring rhetoric.

Tillotson was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, and educated at Cambridge. Before becoming archbishop, he was chaplain to Charles II (1666), dean of Canterbury (1672), canon of St Paul's (1675), and dean of St Paul's (1689). His works include Rule of Faith 1666, and four lectures on Socinianism 1693.