Author: Coldwell, William
Biography:
by
Ashfield, Andrew (AA)
COLDWELL, William (1768-1836: ancestry.co.uk)
John Holland (q.v.), the Sheffield poet, scholar, and literary editor, states that Coldwell was a native of Skipwith, near York, and spent much of his life in Sheffield, Yorkshire, working as a geological surveyor and architect; also that he was a Methodist New Connexion preacher. No public records have been located for his birth and the names of his parents are not known. Holland records that he obtained a copy of The Psalms or Sacred Odes (1821) from a daughter of Coldwell’s. William Coldwell is probably the man of that name who married Elizabeth Grubb at St. Peter and St. Paul cathedral, Sheffield, on 21 July 1799. They had two daughters, Ann and Elizabeth. It is not known when exactly his wife died but it would have been shortly before Coldwell moved to London where, on 4 Jan. 1825, he married Jane Ball Senols (1777-1865) at St. Leonard's, Shoreditch. They lived at King Square, Islington. He died at Dale Street, Liverpool, on 2 Mar. 1836, aged 68, and was buried in St. James’s Cemetery there on 7 Mar. His will was proved on 28 Mar. that year. It was first written on 3 Feb. 1825 and establishes that he owned various London properties. The will left his estate to his wife but three subsequent codicils (1827. 1831, 1832) list new properties he had acquired and add his daughters and a grandson as heirs. (The daughters had remained living in Sheffield.) An obituary notes that he contributed to the Rev. Samuel Drew's Imperial Magazine and that "his labours for the conversion of the Jews had long been of the most arduous and incessant kind." (ancestry.co.uk 27 May 2023, 6 Aug. 2026; J. Horsfall Turner, Halifax Books and Authors [1906], 123-4; John Holland, The Psalmists of Britain [1843], 2: 291-6; Julian, 923; Preston Chronicle 12 Mar. 1836; Wesleyan Methodist Magazine Mar. 1836, 316; National Archives PROB 11-1858-454; findmypast.co.uk 7 Aug. 2026; information from SR) AA