Ferrar, Nicholas

a religious enthusiast in the reign of Charles I.; was elected a Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1610; afterwards devoted himself to medicine and travelled on the Continent; subsequently joined his father in busine in London, and entered Parliament in 1624; but a year later retired to the country, and at Little Gidding, Hunting dons hire, founded, with some of his near relations, a religious community, known as the "Arm in i an Nunnery," some account of which is given in Short house's "John Ingles ant"; it was broken up by the Puritans in 1647; he was the intimate friend of George Herbert; this community consisted of some "fourscore persons, devoted to a kind of Protestant monasticism; they followed celibacy and merely religious duties, employed themselves in binding prayer-books, ., in alms-giving and what charitable work was po ible to them in their desert retreat, kept up, night and day, a continual repetition of the English liturgy, never allowing at any hour the sacred fire to go out" (1592-1637).