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John Newton, author of “Amazing Grace,” had a paradoxical life. He was born in 1725 and sailed with his father as a young man. He was forced into naval service and served on a slave ship, where he converted to Christianity. He continued to work on slavers and eventually became a captain. After retiring, he became an Anglican minister and a prominent Dissenter clergyman. He later became a fervent abolitionist and expressed repentance for his role in the slave trade. He died in 1807 and was buried in St. Mary Woolnoth, later moved to Olney.
John Newton was a prominent Anglican clergyman who is probably best remembered as the author of the hymn “Amazing Grace”. Newton lived a very interesting life with some elements that seem almost paradoxical. He lived in a very tumultuous time in English history, when society was undergoing great reform and change, and Christian evangelists were leading the way. He has interacted with a number of notable British figures as a clergyman and councillor, including prominent members of parliament and society.
Newton was born in 1725 in Wapping. He sailed on several voyages with his father, also a sailor, as a young man after his mother’s death at the age of six. His father had high hopes for him; the plan was to install John Newton as a slave master on a plantation in Jamaica, but the young man was forced into naval service before that could happen. When he attempted to desert, he was severely punished and ended up serving on a slave ship. Oddly enough, it was during his time in slavery, as they were then called, that he began reading the Bible and other Christian texts, and eventually converted to evangelical Christianity.
Paradoxically, after his conversion, John Newton continued to work on slavers, eventually rising to the position of captain. He only retired in 1754 due to injuries which prevented him from pursuing a life at sea, so he began studying to be a priest. In 1764 he was accepted as an Anglican minister and was sent to Buckinghamshire, where he became a prominent Dissenter clergyman, supporting other evangelicals and social reformers. In 1779, Newton was offered a position in London, where he worked until his death.
Many people find it difficult to reconcile the idea of Christian values with the captain of a slave ship. Indeed, later in his life, John Newton became a fervent abolitionist, even publishing a treatise on it in 1787, and wrote of his struggles with Christian values and slavery at other times in his life. Eventually, he expressed repentance for his role in the slave trade, and some of the hymns he published in 1779, including “Amazing Grace,” alluded to this.
John Newton died in 1807, the same year that the British Parliament banned the transport of slaves into the British Empire. He was buried at St. Mary Woolnoth, along with his wife, Mary Catlett, who predeceased him in his death. Later, the two were moved to Olney, the site of his first parish.
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