Author: Buckworth, John
Biography:
BUCKWORTH, John (1779-1835: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 16 Jan. 1779 at Colsterworth, Lincolnshire, the eldest of seven children of Thomas Buckworth and Alice Stanham, who had married in 1777. He went to school in Buckden (now in Cambridgeshire) and was then apprenticed to a chemist in Sleaford. At sixteen he came under the influence of a minister with Methodist sympathies and underwent a conversion experience. With a view to becoming a minister, he entered St. Edmund’s Hall, Oxford (matric. 1801, BA 1805, MA 1810) and was ordained deacon (1804) and priest (1805). He was first curate and from 1806 vicar at All Saints, Dewsbury, Yorkshire (1804-35), where he also married Rachel Halliley (1781-1857) on 28 Jan. 1806. She was the eldest daughter of John Halliley of Aldhams House, the wealthiest mill owner in the area and known as the “King of Dewsbury.” They do not appear to have had any children. He died on 2 Apr. 1835, aged 56, and was buried in his church, with a marble monument erected later that year by subscription. Rachel Buckworth died on 14 Dec. 1857. Halkett and Laing give a first edition of 1814 but no copy has been located. The fifth edition listed here gave his name, “Rev. J. Buckworth, A.M. Vicar of Dewsbury,” on the title-page and noted that previous editions had simply had “By a Clergyman”--but none of the earlier editions has been located. He also published a few sermons which are no longer read. Extracts from his conversion diary were published in a Memoir (1836). (Memoir of the Rev. John Buckworth, MA. [1836]; ancestry.co.uk 27 May 2023; CCEd 27 May 2023; York Herald 8 Feb. 1806; Yorkshire Gazette 11 Apr. 1835; Leeds Times 14 Nov. 1835,19 Dec. 1857) AA
Other Names:
- J. Buckworth