Life

Farrow was born at Boston, Lincolnshire

Boston, Lincolnshire

Boston is a town and small port in Lincolnshire, on the east coast of England. It is the largest town of the wider Borough of Boston local government district and had a total population of 55,750 at the 2001 census...

, of ‘religious parents,’ and educated at the grammar school of that town. He was afterwards entered at Magdalene College, Cambridge

Magdalene College, Cambridge

Magdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary Magdalene...

, as a member of which he proceeded M.A. On quitting the university he became private tutor in a family at Louth, Lincolnshire

Louth, Lincolnshire

Louth is a market town and civil parish within the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England.-Geography:Known as the "capital of the Lincolnshire Wolds", it is situated where the ancient trackway Barton Street crosses the River Lud, and has a total resident population of 15,930.The Greenwich...

, for some years, during which time he refused the mastership of the newly erected free school

Sir John Nelthorpe School

The Sir John Nelthorpe School is a comprehensive school on Grammar School Road in Brigg, North Lincolnshire.-Admissions:The is for ages from 11 to 18. The is on Wrawby Road.-Grammar school:...

 at Brigg

Brigg

Brigg is a small market town in North Lincolnshire, England, with a population of 5,076 in 2,213 households . The town lies at the junction of the River Ancholme and east-west transport routes across northern Lincolnshire...

 in the same county. He was episcopally ordained, and, after he had been successively chaplain to Lady Hussey of Caythorpe, Lincolnshire, and to Sir Richard Earle of Stragglethorpe

Stragglethorpe

Stragglethorpe is a village in the civil parish of Brant Broughton with Stragglethorpe, in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is located about east of Newark-on-Trent. The population of the civil parish in 2001 was 639...

, Lincolnshire, he returned to Boston and was curate there to Dr. Obadiah Howe until Howe's death in February 1683. He supplied Howe's place until the arrival of a new vicar.

From Boston he removed into the family of Sir William Ellys at Nocton, Lincolnshire, where he continued chaplain until his death. Among his friends he numbered Edward Fowler

Edward Fowler

Edward Fower was an English churchman, Bishop of Gloucester from 1691 until his death.- Early life and education :He was born at Westerleigh, Gloucestershire, and was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, later moving to Trinity College, Cambridge.- Writings :Fower was suspected of Pelagian...

, afterwards bishop of Gloucester, John Locke

John Locke

John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...

, and Thomas Burnet

Thomas Burnet

Thomas Burnet , theologian and writer on cosmogony.-Life:He was born at Croft near Darlington in 1635. After studying at Northallerton Grammar School under Thomas Smelt, he went to Clare Hall, Cambridge in 1651. There he was a pupil of John Tillotson...

, master of the Charterhouse. He died unmarried at Newark-upon-Trent, Nottinghamshire, on 22 July 1692, aged about forty, and was buried in the chancel of the church. As he was never beneficed, he escaped the penalty of his nonconformity. Benjamin Calamy, who observes that ‘he was not ejected in 1662,’ forgetting that Farrow could not then have been more than ten years old, gives him a wonderful character for learning, probity, and sanctity of life. He had, it seems, ‘a political head, and would give surprizing conjectures about public affairs, by which he foretold the several steps of the glorious Revolution.’ Calamy mentions as his works ‘several sets of Sermons,’ which were ‘thought not much inferior to those of the most celebrated preachers of the age.’ He also left some ‘valuable manuscripts.’