WELDE, Thomas, born in England about 1590; died there, 23 March, 1662. He was graduated at Cambridge in 1613, became a minister of the established church, and had charge for some time of a parish in Terling, Essex, but his Puritan opinions caused him to emigrate to Boston, where he arrived on 5 June. 1632. In July he became minister of the 1st church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, where, after the following November, John Eliot, the "apostle," was associated with him. He was active in opposition to Anne Hutchinson and her doctrines, took a conspicuous part in her trial, and afterward wrote "A Short Story of the Rise, Reign, and Ruin of the Antinomians, Familists, and Libertines that infested the Churches of New England" (London, 1644; 2d ed., 1692). A shorter version, entitled " Antinomians and Familists Condemned," which appeared about the same time, may be the original" and some authorities maintain that Governor John Winthrop was the chief author. The book was answered by Reverend John Wheelwright in his "Mercurius Americanus" (1645). Welde was also associated with John Eliot and Richard Mather in preparing, by request of the authorities, the translation of the Psalms in metre that is usually called the " Bay Psalm-Book," and is entitled "The Whole Book of Psalms Faithfully translated into English Metre" (Cambridge, 1640). This was the first volume that was printed in New England. Welde was sent with Hugh Peters to England in 1641 as an agent of the colony, but was dismissed in 1646, and requested to return. He did not comply, but remained in England, and was minister of a church at Gateshead, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He accompanied Lord Forbes to Ireland, and, after residing there for some time, returned to England, where he was elected from his living for non-conformity in 1662. Besides the works already noticed, Welde was the author of "An Answer to W. R., his Narration of opinions and Practices of the New England Churches" (1644). With three other clergymen he wrote "The Perfect Pharisee under Monkish Holiness," an attack on the Quakers (1654), and "The False Jew Detected."--One of his sons, THOMAS, remained in New England, and was in the general court in 1676-'7.