The Second Westminster Company
Tasked with translating the Epistles, or letters, of the New Testament from Greek, the Second Westminster Company was headed by William Barlow, a former royal chaplain to Queen Elizabeth who was also favored by King James. Barlow’s notes of the Hampton Court conference, The Summe and Substance of the Conference, offer an invaluable daily record of the event at which the translation of the Bible was proposed and approved. During the course of the translation project, Barlow became bishop of Rochester and then bishop of Lincoln.
Among the other translators in the company were the present and future presidents of two Oxford colleges: Ralph Hutchinson of St. John’s College and John Spenser, who became president of Corpus Christi College after the death of another translator, John Rainolds of the First Oxford Company.
The relatively small Second Westminster Company was further reduced by the deaths of Hutchinson in 1606 and William Dakins in 1607. It appears that neither was replaced. An extraordinary surviving manuscript at Lambeth Palace Library, the only one of its kind for the King James Bible, shows this company’s translation at a draft stage, ready for circulation and comment.
 John Spenser. Monument. Photograph © Tim Rawle. |
Great Cloisters, Westminster Abbey. Photo: akg-images / A.F. Kersting.
This company translated:
Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude
Watch Reconstructing the Process to learn more about the Lambeth Palace Epistles manuscript and other crucial documents.
