Author: Creighton, James
Biography:
CREIGHTON, James (1739-1819: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 5 Feb. 1739 at Moyne Hall, county Cavan, Ireland, of Scottish Calvinists who attended the Church of Ireland. He was educated at Cavan grammar school and proceeded to Trinity College Dublin (Sizar 1760, BA 1764). He was then ordained deacon (1764) and priest (1765). He taught at his old school (1764-6) before becoming curate at Swanlinbar, Cavan. In 1773 he directed ten queries to John Wesley, was impressed by his replies, and gravitated towards Methodism. In 1776 he underwent a conversion experience after years of doubting his calling. In 1781-2 he preached in seven different counties and walked 4000 miles. In Oct. 1783, he left Ireland and became John Wesley’s assistant at City Road Chapel, Bunhill Fields, London. He was listed as one of the hundred legal members of conference, after the Wesleys and Thomas Coke (qq.v.) in the Deed of Declaration of 28 Feb. 1784. In Jan. 1785 he wrote his spiritual autobiography and published it in the Arminian Magazine, which he later edited (1789-92). He continued to serve at City Road Chapel until his death in 1819. His major prose work was An Enquiry into the Origins of the True Religion (1803, 2nd edn. enlarged, 1817). Poetical Miscellanies (1791) included secular verse on his leaving Ireland in 1783 (“The Parting Scene”) and a topographical poem (“The Prospect of the Lake Erne”). His earlier religious poem, Millenial Liberty (1788), had also included topographical elements and was written at Dover Cliffs. He married Alice Ingham (1746-1816) on 28 Apr. 1778, probably at her parish of St. Peter’s Dublin. They had at least four daughters and two sons, variously born in Ireland and England. She died on 2 June 1816, aged 70, and was buried at St. John’s, Hoxton, 8 June. He died on 26 Dec. 1819 at his home in Paradise Row, Bethnal Green, and was also buried at St. John’s, on 1 Jan. 1820. (Lewis, 1: 268-9; ODNB 12 Dec. 2023; DNB; Rogal, 1: 379-80; ancestry.co.uk 12 Dec. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 12 Dec. 2023; “A Short Account of the Experience of Rev. James Creighton,” Arminian Magazine May-Aug. 1785, 241-4, 297-302, 354-9, 398-403; Methodist Magazine 1820, 694-5; PLDA 29 Dec. 1819) AA
Other Names:
- the Rev. J. C.
- the Rev. J. Creighton