John Newton | |
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 Contemporary portrait of Newton | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 4 August [O.S. 24 July] 1725[1] Wapping, London, England |
| Died | 21 December 1807(1807-12-21) (aged 82) London, England |
| Spouse | |
| Occupation | British sailor, slaver,Anglican cleric and prominentslavery abolitionist |
John Newton (/ˈnjuːtən/; 4 August [O.S. 24 July] 1725 – 21 December 1807) was an EnglishevangelicalAnglican cleric and slaveryabolitionist. He had previously been a captain of slave ships and an investor in the slave trade. He served as a sailor in theRoyal Navy (after forced recruitment) and was himself enslaved for a time in West Africa. He is noted for being author of the hymns "Amazing Grace" and "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken".
Newton went to sea at a young age and worked on slave ships in theAtlantic slave trade for several years. In 1745, he himself became a slave of Princess Peye, a woman of theSherbro people in what is nowSierra Leone.[2] He was rescued, returned to sea and the trade, and captained several slave ships. After retiring from active sea-faring, he continued to invest in the slave trade. Some years after experiencing aconversion to Christianity during his rescue, Newton renounced his trade and became a prominent supporter ofabolitionism. Now an evangelical, he was ordained as aChurch of England cleric and served asparish priest atOlney, Buckinghamshire, for two decades and wrote hymns.
Newton lived to see the British Empire'sabolition of the African slave trade in 1807, just months before his death.
John Newton was born inWapping, London, in 1725, the son of John Newton the Elder, ashipmaster in theMediterranean service, and Elizabeth (née Scatliff). Elizabeth was the only daughter of Simon Scatliff, an instrument maker from London.[a] Elizabeth was brought up as aNonconformist.[3] She died oftuberculosis (then called consumption) in July 1732, about two weeks before her son's seventh birthday.[4] Newton spent two years at aboarding school, before going to live atAveley inEssex, the home of his father's new wife.[5]
At age eleven he first went to sea with his father. Newton sailed six voyages before his father retired in 1742. At that time, Newton's father made plans for him to work at asugarcaneplantation in Jamaica. Instead, Newton signed on with a merchant ship sailing to theMediterranean Sea.
In 1743, while going to visit friends, Newton waspressed into theRoyal Navy. He became amidshipman aboardHMSHarwich. At one point Newton tried to desert and was punished in front of the crew. Stripped to the waist and tied to the grating, he received aflogging and was reduced to the rank of a commonseaman.[6]
Following that disgrace and humiliation, Newton initially contemplated murdering the captain and committing suicide by throwing himself overboard.[7] He recovered, both physically and mentally. Later, whileHarwich was en route to India, he transferred toPegasus, aslave ship bound forWest Africa. In what was known as the "triangular trade", the ship carried goods to Africa and traded them for slaves to be shipped to the colonies in the Caribbean and North America.
Newton did not get along with the crew ofPegasus. In 1745, they left him in West Africa with Amos Clowe, a slave dealer.[8] Clowe took Newton to the coast and gave him to his wife, Princess Peye of theSherbro people.[9] According to Newton, she abused and mistreated him just as much as she did her other slaves. Newton later recounted this period as the time he was "once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in West Africa."[b]
Early in 1748, he was rescued by a sea captain who had been asked by Newton's father to search for him, and returned to England on the merchant shipGreyhound, which was carryingbeeswax and dyer's wood, now referred to ascamwood.[10]
In 1748, during his return voyage to England aboard the shipGreyhound, Newton had a Christian conversion. He awoke to find the ship caught in a severe storm off the coast ofCounty Donegal, Ireland and about to sink. In response, Newton began praying for God's mercy, after which the storm began to die down. After four weeks at sea, theGreyhound made it to port inLough Swilly (Ireland). This experience marked the beginning of his conversion to Christianity.[11][12][failed verification]
He began to read theBible and other Christian literature. By the time he reached Great Britain, he had accepted the doctrines ofevangelical Christianity. The date was 21 March 1748,[13] an anniversary he marked for the rest of his life. From that point on, he avoided profanity, gambling and drinking. Although he continued to work in the slave trade, he had gained sympathy for the slaves during his time in Africa. He later said that his true conversion did not happen until some time later: he wrote in 1764 "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards."[14]
Newton returned in 1748 toLiverpool, a major port for theTriangular Trade. Partly due to the influence of his father's friend Joseph Manesty, he obtained a position asfirst mate aboard the slave shipBrownlow, bound for theWest Indies via the coast of Guinea. After his return to England in 1750, he made three voyages as captain of the slave shipsDuke of Argyle (1750) andAfrican (1752–53 and 1753–54). After suffering a severe stroke in 1754, he gave up seafaring, while continuing to invest in Manesty's slaving operations.[15]
After Newton moved to theCity of London as rector ofSt Mary Woolnoth Church, he contributed to the work of theCommittee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, formed in 1787. During this time he wrote
Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade.. In it he states, "So much light has been thrown upon the subject, by many able pens; and so many respectable persons have already engaged to use their utmost influence, for the suppression of a traffic, which contradicts the feelings of humanity; that it is hoped, this stain of our National character will soon be wiped out."[12]
On 12 February 1750, Newton married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Catlett, atSt. Margaret's Church, Rochester.[16]
Newton adopted his two orphaned nieces, Elizabeth Cunningham and Eliza Catlett, both from the Catlett side of the family.[17] Newton's niece Alys Newton later married Mehul, a prince from India.[18]
In 1755, Newton was appointed as tide surveyor (a tax collector) of thePort of Liverpool, again through the influence of Manesty. In his spare time, he studied Greek,Hebrew, andSyriac, preparing for serious religious study. He became well known as an evangelical lay minister. In 1757, he applied to beordained as a priest in theChurch of England, but it was more than seven years before he was eventually accepted.
During this period, he also applied to theIndependents andPresbyterians. He mailed applications directly to theBishops of Chester andLincoln and the Archbishops ofCanterbury andYork.
Eventually, in 1764, he was introduced byThomas Haweis toThe 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, who was influential in recommending Newton toWilliam Markham, Bishop of Chester. Haweis suggested Newton for theliving ofOlney,Buckinghamshire. On 29 April 1764 Newton received deacon's orders, and finally was ordained as a priest on 17 June.
As curate of Olney, Newton was partly sponsored byJohn Thornton, a wealthy merchant and evangelical philanthropist. He supplemented Newton's stipend of £60 a year with £200 a year "for hospitality and to help the poor". Newton soon became well known for his pastoral care, as much as for his beliefs. His friendship withDissenters and evangelical clergy led to his being respected by Anglicans andNonconformists alike. He spent sixteen years at Olney. His preaching was so popular that the congregation added a gallery to the church to accommodate the many persons who flocked to hear him.
Some five years later, in 1772,Thomas Scott took up the curacy of the neighbouring parishes ofStoke Goldington andWeston Underwood. Newton was instrumental in converting Scott from a cynical 'career priest' to a true believer, a conversion which Scott related in his spiritual autobiographyThe Force of Truth (1779). Later Scott became a biblical commentator and co-founder of theChurch Missionary Society.
In 1779, Newton was invited by John Thornton to become Rector ofSt Mary Woolnoth,Lombard Street, London, where he officiated until his death. The church had been built byNicholas Hawksmoor in 1727 in the fashionableBaroque style. Newton was one of only two evangelical Anglican priests in the capital, and he soon found himself gaining in popularity amongst the growing evangelical party. He was a strong supporter of evangelicalism in the Church of England. He remained a friend of Dissenters (such as Methodists post-Wesley, and Baptists) as well as Anglicans.
Young churchmen and people struggling with faith sought his advice, including such well-known social figures as the writer and philanthropistHannah More, and the youngWilliam Wilberforce, amember of parliament (MP) who had recently suffered a crisis of conscience and religious conversion while contemplating leaving politics. The younger man consulted with Newton, who encouraged Wilberforce to stay inParliament and "serve God where he was".[19][20]
In 1792, Newton was presented with the degree ofDoctor of Divinity by theCollege of New Jersey (now Princeton University).
In 1767,William Cowper, the poet, moved to Olney. He worshipped in Newton's church, and collaborated with the priest on a volume of hymns; it was published asOlney Hymns in 1779. This work had a great influence on English hymnology. The volume included Newton's well-known hymns: "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken", "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds!", and "Faith's Review and Expectation", which has come to be known by its opening phrase, "Amazing Grace".
Many of Newton's (as well as Cowper's) hymns are preserved in theSacred Harp, a hymnal used in the American South during theSecond Great Awakening. Hymns were scored according to the tonal scale forshape note singing. Easily learnt and incorporating singers into four-part harmony, shape note music was widely used by evangelical preachers to reach new congregants.
In 1776, Newton contributed a preface to an annotated version ofJohn Bunyan'sThe Pilgrim's Progress.[23]
Newton also contributed to theCheap Repository Tracts. He wrote an autobiography entitledAn Authentic Narrative of Some Remarkable And Interesting Particulars in the Life of ------ Communicated, in a Series of Letters, to the Reverend T. Haweis, Rector of Aldwinckle, And by him, at the request of friends, now made public, which he published anonymously in 1764 with a Preface by Haweis. It was later described as "written in an easy style, distinguished by great natural shrewdness, and sanctified by the Lord God and prayer".[24]
In 1788, 34 years after he had retired from the slave trade, Newton broke a long silence on the subject with the publication of a forceful pamphletThoughts Upon the Slave Trade, in which he described the horrific conditions of the slave ships during theMiddle Passage. He apologised for "a confession, which ... comes too late ... It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders." He had copies sent to every MP, and the pamphlet sold so well that it swiftly required reprinting.[25]
Newton became an ally of William Wilberforce, leader of the Parliamentary campaign to abolish the African slave trade. He lived to see the British passage of theSlave Trade Act 1807, which enacted this event.
Newton came to believe that during the first five of his nine years as a slave trader he had not been a Christian in the full sense of the term. In 1763 he wrote: "I was greatly deficient in many respects ... I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards."[14]
Newton's wife Mary Catlett died in 1790, after which he publishedLetters to a Wife (1793), in which he expressed his grief.[26] Plagued by ill health and failing eyesight, Newton died on 21 December 1807 in London. He was buried beside his wife in St. Mary Woolnoth in London. Both were reinterred at theChurch of Saints Peter and Paul, Olney in 1893.[27]
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