Rev john newton biography wikipedia

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His life was spent in the lowest sort of wickedness. When recaptured he was degraded to the rank of a common seaman (1745), and at his own request exchanged off Madeira into a slaver, which took him to the coast of Sierra Leone. They held not only a regular weekly church service but also began a series of weekly prayer meetings, for which their goal was to write a new hymn for each one.

The Bill Moyers special on "Amazing Grace" speculated that it may have originated as the tune of a song the slaves sang. Their house at Orchard Side was only separated from the vicarage by a paddock. On 12 February 1750 he was married at Chatham to Mary Catlett, the daughter of a distant relative, with whom he bad been in love since 1742, when he was only seventeen, and the girl no more than fourteen.

During his adventurous career as a sailor he succeeded in educating himself. The first edition, published in 1779, contained 68 pieces by Cowper and 280 by Newton.

He died on 21 December 1807, and was buried by the side of his wife in St. Mary Woolnoth. In 1802-3, however, she fell into a deep melancholy, which necessitated her removal to Bedlam. 1781; 3rd ed. After her recovery she married an optician named Smith in 1805, but she remained with her husband under Newton's roof. 1765; other editions 1775, 1780, 1792.
2.

The book contained sixty-eight pieces by Cowper, and 280 by Newton, including 'How sweet the name of Jesus sounds!' The contrast between the two writers' contributions is not great, but such hymns as exhibit any real flash of poetic genius may generally be safely assigned to Cowper. Historians accredit his journals and letters for much of what is known today about the eighteenth century slave trade.

111), and sought to amuse Cowper by a display of a shrewd and quaint humour (see BULL, Life of John Newton, p. At the age of eleven, John went to sea and spent the next twenty years as a sailor engaged in slave trading. 1787; other editions 1792, 1795, 1797, &c
5. One of the finest by Newton is 'Glorious things of Thee are spoken,' and it is the only really jubilant hymn in the book (see JULIAN, Dictionary of Hymnology).