He also wrote hymns, including "Amazing Grace" and "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken". Newton lived to see the British Empire’s abolition of the African slave trade in 1807, just months before his death. ==Early life== John Newton was born in Wapping, London, in 1725, the son of John Newton the Elder, a shipmaster in the Mediterranean service, and Elizabeth (née Scatliff).
The church had been built by Nicholas Hawksmoor in 1727 in the fashionable Baroque style.
She died of tuberculosis (then called consumption) in July 1732, about two weeks before her son’s seventh birthday.
Newton sailed six voyages before his father retired in 1742.
Instead, Newton signed on with a merchant ship sailing to the Mediterranean Sea. ===Impressment into naval service=== In 1743, while going to visit friends, Newton was captured and pressed into the naval service by the Royal Navy.
In 1745, he himself became a slave of Princess Peye, a woman of the Sherbro people.
In 1745 they left him in West Africa with Amos Clowe, a slave dealer.
Newton later recounted this period as the time he was "once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in West Africa." 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 ship Greyhound, which was carrying beeswax and dyer's wood, now referred to as camwood. ==Spiritual conversion== In 1748, during his return voyage to England aboard the ship Greyhound, Newton had a spiritual conversion.
The date was 10 March 1748, an anniversary he marked for the rest of his life.
He later said that his true conversion did not happen until some time later: "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards." == Slave trading == Newton returned in 1748 to Liverpool, a major port for the Triangle Trade.
After his return to England in 1750, he made three voyages as captain of the slave ships Duke of Argyle (1750) and African (1752–53 and 1753–54).
After his return to England in 1750, he made three voyages as captain of the slave ships Duke of Argyle (1750) and African (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. In 1780 Newton moved to the City of London as rector of St Mary Woolnoth Church, where he contributed to the work of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, formed in 1787.
Newton's niece Alys Newton later married Mehul, a prince from India. ==Anglican priest== In 1755 Newton was appointed as tide surveyor (a tax collector) of the Port of Liverpool, again through the influence of Manesty.
In 1757, he applied to be ordained as a priest in the Church of England, but it was more than seven years before he was eventually accepted. During this period, he also applied to the Methodists, Independents and Presbyterians.
In 1763 he wrote: "I was greatly deficient in many respects ...
He mailed applications directly to the Bishops of Chester and Lincoln and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. Eventually, in 1764, he was introduced by Thomas Haweis to The 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, who was influential in recommending Newton to William Markham, Bishop of Chester.
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 by John Thornton, a wealthy merchant and evangelical philanthropist.
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.
I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards." ==Writer and hymnist== In 1767 William Cowper, the poet, moved to 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 of Stoke Goldington and Weston Underwood.
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 of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. Newton also contributed to the Cheap Repository Tracts.
Later Scott became a biblical commentator and co-founder of the Church Missionary Society. In 1779 Newton was invited by John Thornton to become Rector of St Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street, London, where he officiated until his death.
He worshipped in Newton's church, and collaborated with the priest on a volume of hymns; it was published as Olney Hymns in 1779.
After suffering a severe stroke in 1754, he gave up seafaring, while continuing to invest in Manesty's slaving operations. In 1780 Newton moved to the City of London as rector of St Mary Woolnoth Church, where he contributed to the work of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, formed in 1787.
After suffering a severe stroke in 1754, he gave up seafaring, while continuing to invest in Manesty's slaving operations. In 1780 Newton moved to the City of London as rector of St Mary Woolnoth Church, where he contributed to the work of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, formed in 1787.
It was later described as "written in an easy style, distinguished by great natural shrewdness, and sanctified by the Lord God and prayer". ==Final years== Newton's wife Mary Catlett died in 1790, after which he published Letters to a Wife (1793), in which he expressed his grief.
John Newton (; – 21 December 1807) was an English Anglican cleric, a captain of slave ships who later became an abolitionist, and an investor of trade.
He also wrote hymns, including "Amazing Grace" and "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken". Newton lived to see the British Empire’s abolition of the African slave trade in 1807, just months before his death. ==Early life== John Newton was born in Wapping, London, in 1725, the son of John Newton the Elder, a shipmaster in the Mediterranean service, and Elizabeth (née Scatliff).
He lived to see the British passage of the Slave 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.
Plagued by ill health and failing eyesight, Newton died on 21 December 1807 in London.
Both were reinterred at the Church of St Peter and Paul in Olney in 1893. ==Commemoration== Newton is memorialised with his self-penned epitaph on his tomb at Olney: JOHN NEWTON.
To this day his former town of Olney provides philanthropy for the African town. In 1982, Newton was recognised for his influential hymns by the Gospel Music Association when he was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. A memorial to him was erected in Buncrana in Inishowen, County Donegal, in Ulster in 2013.
To this day his former town of Olney provides philanthropy for the African town. In 1982, Newton was recognised for his influential hymns by the Gospel Music Association when he was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. A memorial to him was erected in Buncrana in Inishowen, County Donegal, in Ulster in 2013.
Newton is played by Nick Moran. The 2014 film Freedom tells the story of an American slave (Samuel Woodward, played by Cuba Gooding, Jr.) escaping to freedom via the Underground Railroad.
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