John Newton
1725–1807
Slave-trader and clergyman. After being press-ganged aboard HMS Harwich in 1744, he transferred to a merchant vessel in the African slave trade. Worked in the onshore trade on the Guinea coast of Africa. Returned to England in 1748, and after barely surviving a storm on the voyage, converted to Christianity. Continued to work as the master of slave-trading ships until illness forced him to retire. Became a Calvinist around 1754; priest in the Church of England, 1764. Curate, Olney in Buckinghamshire, until 1780, when he accepted the benefice of St Mary Woolnoth with St Mary Woolchurch, Lombard Street, London. Supported abolition later in life.
Source
ODNB
Bibliography
ODNB: Oxford dictionary of national biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000. (Revised edition.) Edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 vols. and index. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004.
