Author: Gadsby, William
Biography:
GADSBY, William (1773-1844: ODNB)
He was born at Attleborough, Nuneaton, and baptised at St. Nicholas, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, on 23 Jan. 1773, the second of at least eight children of John Gadsby and his second wife, Martha Lingard, who married in 1770. He had little education and was apprenticed to a ribbon weaver in 1786 and subsequently became a stocking weaver and later a hosier and draper. After witnessing a triple hanging in 1790, he experienced conversion. He was baptised 29 Dec. 1793 at Cow Lane Baptist Chapel, Coventry. In 1796 he first preached in a barn in Hogg Lane, Hinckley, Leicestershire, and continued as an itinerant preacher until he moved to Manchester in 1805, becoming minister at Back Lane Chapel, Rochdale Road. He remained there until his death but continued itinerant preaching and is estimated to have travelled 60,000 miles, given nearly 12,000 sermons and been present at the founding of more than thirty chapels. He was staunchly Calvinist, placing the Gospel above the law, and is regarded as a leading figure in the Strict and Particular Baptist church. He drew large audiences, often in the thousands. He wrote frequently on religious subjects and his son, John Gadsby (1808-93), collected much of his work and wrote A Memoir (1844). In addition to sermons and religious pamphlets, his main contribution was to hymnody: The Nazarene’s Songs (1814 with additions 1824, and frequently reprinted under the title of A Selection of Hymns). He contributed many of his hymns to the Gospel Magazine under the signature “A Nazarene” and to the Gospel Standard which he founded with his son in 1835. He married Elizabeth Marvin (1778-1851) on 16 May 1796, probably at Hinckley, her parish. They had at least nine children. He wrote her a Poetical Letter (1830) from London published as a broadsheet. Her final years were marred by insanity but she survived him and died on 16 Mar. 1851 and was buried in the Gadsby family vault (1450) at Rusholme cemetery. He died on 27 Jan. 1844 at his house in Manchester, leaving property in Manchester, Staffordshire, and Great Ormond Street, London. There is a portrait by George Romney. (John Gadsby, A Memoir of the Late Mr. William Gadsby [1844, ODNB 16 Jul. 2022; ancestry.co.uk 16 Jul. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 16 Jul. 2022; Lewis 1: 418; B. A. Ramsbottom, William Gadsby [2003]; Matthew J. Hyde, Gadsby’s: The Story of a Hymnbook [2014]; Manchester Times 24 Feb. 1844) AA
Other Names:
- W. Gadsby
- Wm. Gadsby