WILLIAM, Bishop of Worcester, the son of the rector of Tilehurst in Berkshire, was born there on 18th August 1627. He received his elementary education from his father, and at the age of eleven entered Oriel College, Oxford. Shortly afterwards he became a scholar of Jesus College, and was chosen Bachelor of Arts in 1642, and Master of Arts in 1646. In 1648 he was ordained deacon, and, after living in Berkshire as tutor in a gentleman's family, was presented in 1654 to the rectory of Bradwell. A dispute about the right of presentation soon induced him to resign this benefice. Ordained a priest in 1665 he was appointed in 1666 chaplain in ordinary to Charles II.; and in the following year became a Doctor of Divinity. After passing through several of the lower grades of church preferment, he was installed in 1672 dean of Bangor; and in 1676 was presented by the crown to the vicarage of St Martin's-in-the-Fields, the greatest cure in England. He was promoted to the see of St Asaph in 1680; and was one of the seven bishops who were imprisoned in the Tower in 1688, for refusing to publish in their pulpits the king's declaration for liberty of conscience. A thorough-going supporter of the Revolution, Lloyd was appointed almoner to William and Mary soon after their arrival in England. In 1692 he was translated to the see of Coventry and Lichfield; but was promoted in 1699 to the bishopric of Worcester, vacant by the death of Stillington. He died at Hartlebury Castle, on the 30th August 1717.

Bishop Lloyd contributed many pamphlets to the controversy against Popery that was agitated during his time. Besides a few other tracts on ecclesiastical subjects, and several sermons, he published A Chronological Account of the Life of Pythagoras and of his famous Contemporaries, London, 1699, 8vo; and left unfinished A Dissertation upon Daniel's Seventy Weeks, and A System of Chronology. His friend Dr Burnet, in the History of His Own Time, eulogises Lloyd's amiable disposition, his ample and accurate knowledge, especially in chronology, and his skill as a Biblical critic.