Author: Congreve, George Thomas
Biography:
CONGREVE, George Thomas (1791-1861: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 8 July 1791 in Bedworth, Warwickshire, where his birth was registered at the Independent chapel. He was the eldest of three sons born to George Thomas Congreve, a druggist (d 1815), and his wife Hester or Esther Watts of Corsley, Wiltshire; they had married on 23 Aug. 1790 in All Saints, Bedworth. An obituary in The Gospel Standard states that Congreve senior was received into the Baptist church with his three sons in 1813, two years before his death. George Thomas Congreve junior inherited property from his father whose will was proved on 10 May 1816. Like his father he became a druggist. On 18 Sept. 1834 he married Charlotte West in Bedworth; they had two children, a son and a daughter. The 1841 Census shows the family living in Church Street, Bedworth, but Congreve lost much of his property later in life. During his last years he suffered from blindness. He died on 26 Apr. 1861 and was buried at Bedworth on 6 May 1861. He left effects of under £600. Congreve also wrote hymns and he is almost certainly the author of Zion’s Memorial, included in this bibliography and, like Congreve’s A Letter, edited by William Allen, a Baptist minister. George Thomas Congreve (1821-98), a chemist who wrote a treatise on consumption and composed hymns, was Congreve’s nephew. (ancestry.co.uk 6 Mar. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 6 Mar. 2024; Birmingham Journal 7 July 1832; Coventry Herald 19 Sept. 1834; Gospel Standard 1 Aug. 1861, 245-50) SR