Author: Butcher, Edmund
Biography:
BUTCHER, Edmund (1757-1822: ODNB)
His one book of verse was issued posthumously as by “the late Rev. Edmund Butcher.” Born in Colchester, Essex, in 1757, he was the son of a builder, John Butcher, but the name of his mother and the exact date of his birth are not known. He was educated in Colchester by the Rev. Thomas Stanton, a Presbyterian minister. His family suffered a financial setback and Butcher was apprenticed to a linen draper in London where he was befriended by the Rev. Hugh Worthington of Salter’s Hall who helped prepare him for entry to the dissenters’ Daventry Academy (formerly run by Philip Doddridge, q.v.). His studies led to an appointment at Sowerby, Yorkshire, and then at the Leather Lane chapel in Holborn, London. He was ordained on 19 Mar. 1789. On 6 July 1790 he married Elizabeth Lowe, formerly Lawrence, a widow with one daughter; they had two children, Edmund (b 1791) and Emma (b 1796). Butcher’s declining health required a move away from London and they went to Sidbury Vale, near Sidmouth in Devon, where a brief return of good health allowed him to serve as the minister at a chapel in Sidmouth. A Jewish family that attended his chapel donated land on which they built a house. However increasing ill-health meant another move, this time to Bath, where a fall resulted in a dislocated hip and, eventually, Butcher’s death on 14 Apr. 1822. His funeral service was held at the Trim Street Presbyterian chapel in Bath on 19 Apr. 1822. Elizabeth Butcher died at Bath in 1831. Although Butcher was not a popular preacher, he was a prolific writer whose books include sermons—notably Sermons for the Use of Families (3 vols, 1819)—and collections of hymns. He also published Moral Tales (1801) and The Beauties of Sidmouth Displayed (1810; 3rd edn 1820). He contributed to and edited the Protestant Dissenter’s Magazine. (ODNB 4 Aug. 2023; ancestry.co.uk 4 Aug. 2023; Josiah Miller, Singers and Songs of the Church [1869])