was appointed to the mastership of Magdalene College, Cambridge, by the Visitor of the College, John Griffin, afterwards Lord Howard de Walden, who had the right of presentation as owner of the estate of Audley End. He was incorporated at Cambridge in 1782, appointed vice-chancellor in 1784, and created Doctor of Divinity (DD) per literas regias in 1785. In April 1792 he was advanced by the crown to the deanery of Peterborough. He built a new parsonage-house at Fletton, and was permitted by the patron, John Proby, 2nd Earl of Carysfort, to nominate his successor to the benefice. Peckard died on 8 December 1797, and was buried in Peterborough Cathedral. Peckard left property to Magdalene College, and also founded two scholarships. Works The Zong massacre of 1781 prompted Peckard to speak strongly against slave trade in his sermons, some of which were published as tracts and pamphlets. On becoming vice-chancellor at Cambridge he set the Latin essay competition question, "Anne Liceat Invitos in Servitutem Dare?" ("Is it lawful to enslave the unconsenting?") The first prize went to Thomas Clarkson, later the leading activist in the cause of abolition. Peckard published sermons of a liberal tendency, and those of later life drew attention to the evils of slavery. The views which Archbishop Secker deemed heterodox were set out in: Observations on the Doctrine of an Intermediate State, 1756. Further Observations on the Doctrine of an Intermediate State, 1757. This was in reply to the queries of Thomas Morton, rector of Bassingham. Peckard's opinions were also criticised by Caleb Fleming, in his Survey of the Search of the Souls, 1759, and defended by him in Observations on Mr. Fleming's Survey, 1759, which provoked from Fleming A Defence of the Conscious Scheme against that of the Mortalist. Among Peckard's other sermons and tracts were: The popular Clamour against the Jews indefensible, 1753. A Dissertation on Revelation, chap. xi. ver. 13, 1756. This was written to prove that the passage was prophetical, and fulfilled by the Lisbon earthquake. It was criticised at some length in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1756 (pp. 138–139), and defended by the author in the same periodical (pp. 213–14). The proper Stile of Christian Oratory, 1770 (against theatrical declamation). National Crimes the Cause of National Punishments, 1795. It passed through three editions, and referred mainly to the slave trade, on which subject Peckard often preached. He published anonymously in 1776 a