John newton biography london church

John Newton’s biography from Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

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Newton, John (1725–1807), slave trader and Church of England clergyman, was born on 24 July 1725 in Wapping, London, the only child of John Newton (d.

1750), master mariner in the Mediterranean trade, and his first wife, Elizabeth (1705?–1732), whose maiden name was probably Seatliffe. Two days later he was baptized at the Independent chapel in Old Gravel Lane, Wapping, where his mother attended and where David Jennings was the minister.

He remembered his mother as ‘a pious and experienced Christian’, and at her knee he learned the hymns and catechisms of Isaac Watts and was nurtured in the piety of old dissent.

John newton biography london church

She died of tuberculosis when John was only six. His father remarried after his mother's death, but John's relationship with both his father and his stepmother was distant, and his religious training ceased. His stepmother, Thomasina, was the daughter of a substantial tenan