William Gouge

William Gouge (1575–1653) was an English Puritan minister, born at Stratford-le-Bow in Middlesex and baptised there on 6 November 1575. He was schooled at Felsted, St Paul's and Eton before going up to King's College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. in 1598 and his M.A. in 1601, and stayed on as fellow and lecturer. Among his kinsmen were Laurence Chaderton, William Whitaker and the Culverwells — much of the Elizabethan Puritan leadership met in his family tree.

From 1608 he preached at St Ann Blackfriars in London, first as assistant to Stephen Egerton and then for forty-five years as its minister, until his death. He was called to the Westminster Assembly in 1643, chaired the committee that drafted the Westminster Confession in 1644, and was made an Assessor in 1647 and prolocutor of the Provincial Assembly of London.

Of Domesticall Duties (1622) grew out of his sermons on Ephesians 5:21–6:4 and became the most used English book on family life for a century. He also wrote The Whole Armour of God (1616), God's Three Arrows (1631), and a commentary on Hebrews that his eldest son Thomas published after his death. He and his wife Elizabeth had thirteen children; she died soon after the last was born.