Monument To Theophilus Gale, South Enclosure

Headstone of Theophilus Gale, South Enclosure, Bunhill Fields Burial Ground

This is a small Portland stone headstone with a shaped top, dating to around 1679. The inscription on one side reads: "Theophilus / Gale MA / Born 1628 / Died 1678".

Theophilus Gale (1628–1679) was an ejected minister and theologian born in Devon, where his father was vicar and prebendary of Exeter Cathedral. He studied at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he was awarded a fellowship in 1650. At Oxford, Gale adopted the Independency and high Calvinism of Thomas Goodwin, then president of Magdalen, and of John Owen, vice-chancellor of Oxford. Both these men were likewise buried in Bunhill Fields.

After the Restoration, Gale lost both his fellowship and his position as preacher at Winchester Cathedral. He then worked as a tutor, first in a private household and later at the Dissenting academy he founded at Newington Green in what is now north London. Between 1669 and his death in 1679 (recorded as 1668 in the old calendar), Gale published devotional tracts, biographical accounts of holy lives, and contributions to theological debates. His True Idea of Jansenisme (1669) was probably the first English book on the subject. His major work, The Court of the Gentiles, published in four volumes between 1669 and 1678, attempts a systematic account of human knowledge and history combining Calvinism with influences from Plato and other pre-Christian thinkers. Gale bequeathed much of his estate to various ejected ministers and to a trust for the education of needy Nonconformists preparing for the ministry. Almost 1,000 of his books went to Harvard College.

Bunhill Fields was first enclosed as a burial ground in 1665. Its location just outside the City boundary and its independence from any Established place of worship made it London's principal Nonconformist cemetery, and burial place of figures including John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, and William Blake. The ground was closed for burials in 1853, laid out as a public park in 1867, and re-landscaped following war damage by Bridgewater and Shepheard in 1964–5.

This headstone is possibly the earliest surviving in Bunhill Fields and has a legible inscription recording only rudimentary biographical details, reflecting the importance Nonconformists attached to humility. It forms part of the Grade I registered Bunhill Fields Burial Ground and has group value with the other listed monuments in the south enclosure.