Richard Baron was a dissenting minister, Whig pamphleteer, and editor of Locke, Milton and others.

Life

He was born at Leeds

Leeds

Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

, and educated at the University of Glasgow

University of Glasgow

The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...

 from 1737 to 1740, which he left with a testimonial signed by Francis Hutcheson

Francis Hutcheson

Francis Hutcheson may refer to:*Francis Hutcheson *Francis Hutcheson -See also:*Frank Hutchison, blues musician*Francis Hutchinson, British clergyman...

 and Robert Simson

Robert Simson

Robert Simson was a Scottish mathematician and professor of mathematics at the University of Glasgow. The pedal line of a triangle is sometimes called the "Simson line" after him.-Life:...

. Baron became a friend of Thomas Gordon

Thomas Gordon (writer)

Thomas Gordon was a Scottish writer and Commonwealthman.Along with John Trenchard, he published The Independent Whig, which was a weekly periodical. From 1720 to 1723, Trenchard and Gordon, wrote a series of 144 essays entitled Cato's Letters, condemning corruption and lack of morality within the...

, author of the Independent Whig, and afterwards of Thomas Hollis

Thomas Hollis

Thomas Hollis was an English political philosopher and author.-Early life:Hollis was educated at Adams Grammar School until the age 10, and then in St. Albans until 15, before learning French, Dutch and accountancy in Amsterdam. After the death of his father in 1735, his guardian was a John...

, whom he helped in collecting works defending the republicanism

Republicanism

Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...

 of the seventeenth century.

He had a congregation at Pinners' Hall, London in 1753. An impractical person, Baron died in poverty.

Works

He edited in 1751 a collection of tracts by Gordon, under the title, A Cordial for Low Spirits, 3 vols.; and in 1752 a similar collection by Gordon and others, called The Pillars of Priestcraft and Orthodoxy shaken, in 2 vols. An enlarged edition of the last, in four volumes, including tracts by Benjamin Hoadly

Benjamin Hoadly

Benjamin Hoadly was an English clergyman, who was successively Bishop of Bangor, Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester. He is best known as the initiator of the Bangorian Controversy.-Life:...

, Arthur Ashley Sykes

Arthur Ashley Sykes

-Life:Sykes was born in London in 1683 or 1684 and educated at St. Paul's School. In 1701 he was admitted to Corpus Christi College at Cambridge, where he received scholarship , B.A. , M.A. , and D.D....

, William Arnall

William Arnall

-Life:He was trained as an attorney, but took to political writing before he was twenty. He was one of the authors in Prime Minister Robert Walpole's pay who replied to the Craftsman and the various attacks of Bolingbroke and Pulteney. He wrote the Free Briton under the signature of "Francis...

, and Francis Blackburne

Francis Blackburne (archdeacon)

Francis Blackburne was an English Anglican churchman, archdeacon of Cleveland and an activist against the requirement of subscription to the Thirty Nine Articles.-Life:...

, was prepared by him, and published in 1767 for the benefit of his widow and three children.

In 1751 he edited Algernon Sidney's Discourse concerning Government, and in 1753 John Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

's prose works; of which an edition by John Toland

John Toland

John Toland was a rationalist philosopher and freethinker, and occasional satirist, who wrote numerous books and pamphlets on political philosophy and philosophy of religion, which are early expressions of the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment...

 had appeared in 1697, and one by Thomas Birch

Thomas Birch

Thomas Birch was an English historian.-Life:He was the son of Joseph Birch, a coffee-mill maker, and was born at Clerkenwell....

 in 1738. Baron later found the second edition of Eikonoklastes

Eikonoklastes

Eikonoklastes is a book by John Milton, published October 1649. In it he provides a justification for the execution of Charles I, which had taken place on 30 January 1649. The book's title is taken from the Greek, and means "iconoclast" or "breaker of the icon", and refers to Eikon Basilike, a...

, and reprinted it in 1756. He also edited Edmund Ludlow

Edmund Ludlow

Edmund Ludlow was an English parliamentarian, best known for his involvement in the execution of Charles I, and for his Memoirs, which were published posthumously in a rewritten form and which have become a major source for historians of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. After service in the English...

's Memoirs in 1751, and Marchamont Nedham's Excellency of a Free State in 1757. Hollis engaged him in 1766 to superintend an edition of Andrew Marvell

Andrew Marvell

Andrew Marvell was an English metaphysical poet, Parliamentarian, and the son of a Church of England clergyman . As a metaphysical poet, he is associated with John Donne and George Herbert...

; but the plan was dropped and it was later taken up by Edward Thompson in 1776.

He wrote also against Archibald Bower in A faithful account of Mr Archibald Bower's motives for leaving his office of secretary to the court of inquisition (1750).