| Watts, Isaac |
b Southampton 1674, d Stoke Newington, Middx 1748. King Edward VI Grammar Sch, Southampton, and private tuition; he showed outstanding early promise as a linguist and writer of verse. He belonged to… |
| Spurgeon, Charles Haddon |
b Kelvedon, Essex 1834, d Mentone, S France 1892. Brought up partly by his grandparents, he was deeply influenced by his grandfather, the Independent preacher James Spurgeon in the Essex village of… |
| Cowper, William |
(pronounced ‘Cooper’), b Great Berkhamsted, Herts 1731, d East Dereham, Norfolk 1800. Permanently affected by the loss of his mother in childhood, at 6 he was sent to boarding sch at nearby… |
| Steele, Anne |
b Broughton, Hants 1717, d Broughton 1778. Growing up in a Particular (Calvinist) Baptist family with ministers on both her father’s and her mother’s side, she became a member of the Broughton… |
| Binney, Thomas |
b Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1798, d Upper Clapton, Hackney, Middx (NE London) 1874. Raised in a Presbyterian home, he was educated locally before serving a 7-year bookselling apprenticeship which required… |
| Bonhoeffer, Dietrich |
b Breslau, Germany 1906, d Flossenburg, Germany 1945. Tutored initially at home by the Moravian Fräulein Horn who loved hymns; his mother taught him Scripture, and his father was a teaching… |
| Ryland, John |
b Warwick 1753, d Bristol 1825.A gifted child who was first taught by his father and at the age of 5 could read Ps 23 in Heb; before he was 9 he read and translated the Gk NT—‘in 8 months and 12… |
| Mant, Richard |
b Southampton 1776, d Ballymoney, Co Antrim, N Ireland 1848. Taught first by his father and showing an early love of Lat classics and English verse, he attended Winchester Coll in 1789, where with… |
| Havergal, Frances Ridley |
b Astley, Worcs 1836, d Caswell Bay, Oystermouth, nr Swansea, Glam 1879. Named after a distant ancestor, the Protestant martyr Bp Nicholas Ridley, she was a bubbly personality growing up as her… |
| Milton, John |
b at the Sign of the Spread Eagle in Bread St, Cheapside, London 1608, d St Giles-without-Cripplegate, C London 1674. The son of John senr, a scrivener (secretary/ copyist) and musician, his… |
| Hill, Rowland |
b Hawkstone Park, nr Market Drayton, Shrops 1744, d Southwark, Surrey (S London) 1833. Shrewsbury Sch, Eton Coll, and St John’s Coll Cambridge (BA, MA). Converted through his elder brother Richard… |
| Doddridge, Philip |
b London 1702, d Lisbon, Portugal 1751. The youngest and barely surviving 20th child of a dissenting London oil merchant, he was one of only two to grow beyond infancy. He was educated at home by his… |
| Shekleton, Mary |
b Dublin 1827, d Dublin 1883. She was taught first by her young widowed mother who as a new Christian had 4 small girls to bring up, aged between 6 years and 6 months (Mary). Mrs Shekleton was on a… |
| Hart, Joseph |
b London 1712, d London 1768. He had an evangelical nonconformist upbringing and showed early promise in Heb, Gk, Lat and French. He loved to read and translate classical poetry and soon became a… |
| Plumptre, Edward Hayes |
b Bloomsbury, Middx (C London) 1821, d Wells, Som 1891. A scholar with a distinguished lineage traceable back to the 14th c, he was taught at home before becoming a prizewinning student of King’s… |
| Alstyne, Frances Jane Van (Fanny Crosby) |
b Southeast, Putnam County, NY, USA 1820, d 1915. Born into the extensive Crosby clan, the 17th-c founders of Harvard College, in a single-storey cottage in a rural community, Puritan in faith and… |
| Williams, William |
(known familiarly as ‘Billy’), b Llanfair-ar-y-Bryn, nr Llandovery, Carmarthen, S Wales 1717, d Pantycelyn nr Llandovery, Carmarthenshire 1791. Born into a farming household which was soon… |
| Carmichael, Amy Beatrice (Wilson) |
b Millisle, Co Down 1867, d Dohnavur, India 1951. The eldest and possibly most adventurous of 7 children, she was descended on her father’s side from the Scots Covenanters and on her mother’s from… |
| Clarkson, Edith Margaret 1915 -2008 |
b Melville, Saskatchewan, W Canada 1915; d Shepherd Lodge, Toronto, Canada, 2008 Riverdale Collegiate Institute, Toronto Teachers’ Coll, and Univ of Toronto. A sufferer from arthritis and migraine… |
| M'Cheyne, Robert Murray |
b Edinburgh 1813, d Dundee, Forfarshire 1843. Edinburgh High Sch; Univ of Edinburgh. An early enthusiast for the arts, especially poetry and music, and for sport, notably gymnastics, he retained all… |
| Dudley-Smith, Timothy |
b Manchester 1926. Tonbridge School, Kent, Pembroke Coll Camb, and Ridley Hall Camb; ordained (CofE) 1950. After ministry at Northumberland Heath (nr Erith, Kent) and Bermondsey (SE London) he worked… |
| Neale, John Mason |
b at Lamb’s Conduit St, Bloomsbury, Middx (C London) 1818, d East Grinstead, Sussex 1866. He was taught privately and at Sherborne Sch; Trinity Coll Cambridge (BA 1840), then Fellow and Tutor at… |
| Fawcett, John (A) |
b Lidget Green nr Bradford, Yorks Jan 1739/40, d Hebden Bridge, Halifax, Yorks 1817. His father died when John was 4, leaving his mother to bring up a large and very poor family. He learned to read… |
| Bridges, Robert Seymour |
b Walmer, Kent 1844, d Boars Hill, nr Oxford 1930. After his country squire father died when Robert was 10, his mother remarried and the family moved to Rochdale, from where RSB was sent to Eton Coll;… |
| Lyte, Henry Francis |
b Ednam nr Kelso, Roxburghshire, Scotland 1793, d Nice, France 1847. Portora Royal Sch (a charity school for orphans), Enniskillen, N Ireland, andTrinity Coll Dublin (3 English poetry prizes; BA… |
| Elliott, Charlotte |
b Clapham, Surrey (SW London) 1789, d Brighton, Sussex, 1871. The granddaughter of Henry Venn of Huddersfield, in her youth she enjoyed composing light and comic verses; after her conversion her… |
| Bunyan, John |
b Elstow, Bedfordshire 1628, d London 1688. Born to his father’s second wife, he learned from him the craft of a brazier or ‘tinker’ and only briefly attended the local grammar school. As a… |
| Bayly, Albert Frederick |
b Bexhill, E Sussex 1901, d Chichester, W Sussex 1984. He was received into membership of the local Congregational Church at 13; attended Hastings Grammar Sch but left early to train as a shipwright… |
| Baxter, Richard |
b Rowton, High Ercall, Shrops 1615; d Charterhouse Liberty, Middlesex (London) 1691. Donnington Free Sch, Wroxeter, and private tuition at Ludlow. After a brief time at court he studied theology at… |
| Winkworth, Catherine |
b Ely Place, Saffron Hill liberty, Holborn, London 1827, d Monnetier, Savoy, France 1878. Her early life was spent in the Manchester area, where with her eldest sister Susanna she was educated; in… |
