Skip to main content

Author: Abington, L. J.

Biography:

ABINGTON, Leonard Joseph (1763-1842: ancestry.co.uk)

The son of Leonard Abington, a musician, and his wife Elizabeth Jenkins, he was born on 11 June 1763 and baptised at St. Marylebone, London, on 10 July. His father died in 1766 and his mother, who received an annuity from the Royal Society of Musicians, became a Baptist. Abington was apprenticed on 10 Dec. 1776 to Thomas Ravenshear, a chair carver; it is not known if he ever practiced his trade although there are records of his being in partnership as a looking-glass maker. On 15 Oct. 1784 he married Jane Bollard at St. Andrew’s, Holborn; they had nine children, including five boys. Doane’s 1794 Musical Directory shows them living at 6 Gilbert Street, Bloomsbury, and lists him as a bass singer and member of various choral groups including the Long Acre Society, Choral Fund, and the Surrey Chapel Society. He was rebaptised at the Baptist Grafton Chapel in Soho in about 1802 and his children were baptised at Lady Huntingdon’s chapel in Spa Fields. He became a deacon and in 1819 moved to Staffordshire to preach. In 1830 he was ordained at the Baptist chapel, Ringstead in Northamptonshire. The 1841 Census shows him living there with his wife and one daughter. He died at Ringstead on 8 Apr. 1842 and was buried at the Baptist chapel. He is not to be confused with one of his sons, Leonard James Abington (1785-1867). (ancestry.co.uk 7 Apr. 2022; J. Doane, A Musical Directory for the Year 1794 [1794]; B. Swallow, Biographical Memoirs of Deceased Baptist Ministers [1851]; Sun 7 Apr. 1817; Highfill 1.20)

 

Other Names:

  • L. J. Abington
 

Books written (2):