Author: Fawcett, John
Biography:
FAWCETT, John (1740-1817: ODNB)
Fawcett became a distinguished Baptist preacher and theologian, but is most commonly remembered for one of his hymns, "Blest Be the Tie that Binds." He was born at Lidgate Green near Bradford, Yorkshire, one of several children of Sarah (Holmes) and Stephen Fawcett. Before he was twelve, his father died, but his mother ensured that he received more than a basic education and during his apprenticeship in Bradford he continued to read and educate himself. In 1755 he left the established church after hearing Whitefield preach. In 1758, the year of his marriage to Susannah Skirrow (1735-1810), he joined the Particular Baptists. Fawcett is described in the following years as having had a "growing family"; there were two sons, at least, who grew to maturity. In 1764 he was ordained and became the Baptist minister at Wainsgate, Yorkshire, and later also at nearby Hebden Bridge. He was a dedicated pastor and a celebrated preacher. Despite invitations to London and Bristol, he chose to remain in Yorkshire, where he had opened a day school, established a circulating library, built a larger meeting house, and begun a lifelong mission of training young men for the ministry. Besides his hymns, sermons, and occasional works of practical guidance, he laboured for many years on a scriptural commentary published in 1811 as The Devotional Family Bible. In the same year he was awarded an honorary DD by Brown University in Rhode Island. His wife having predeceased him, he died of rheumatic fever at Ewood Hall, Midgley, Yorks., the home of his son John, who published a memoir of him in 1818. A collected edition of his Miscellaneous Works (in prose) appeared in 1824. He is buried in the Wainsgate Baptist Church graveyard. (ODNB 11 Jul. 2021; ancestry.com 11 Jul. 2021; John Fawcett [Jr.], Account of the Life, Ministry, and Writings of the Late Rev. John Fawcett [1818]; Josiah Miller, Singers and Songs of the Church [1869] 272-3) HJ