Daniel Neal

Who was Daniel Neal?

Daniel Neal was an English historian.

Born in London, he was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, and at the universities of Utrecht and Leiden. In 1704 he became assistant minister, and in 1706 sole minister, of an independent congregation worshipping in Aldersgate Street, and afterwards in Jewin Street, London, where he remained almost until his death. He married Elizabeth Lardner, by whom he had one son, Nathanael, and two daughters.

In 1720 Neal published his History of New England, which obtained for its author the honorary degree of MA from Harvard College. He also undertook to assist Dr John Evans in writing a history of Nonconformity. Evans, however, died in 1730, and, making use of his papers for the period before 1640, Neal wrote the whole of the work himself.

This History of the Puritans deals with the time between the Protestant Reformation and 1689; the first volume appearing in 1732, and the fourth and last in 1738. The first volume was attacked in 1733 for unfairness and inaccuracy by Isaac Maddox, afterwards bishop of St Asaph and bishop of Worcester, to whom Neal replied in a pamphlet, A Review of the principal facts objected to in the first volume of the History of the Puritans; and the remaining volumes by Zachary Grey, to whom the author made no reply.