Author: Griffiths, Daniel
Biography:
GRIFFITHS, Daniel (1779-1862: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 17 Mar. and baptised on 7 Apr. 1779 at Bridge Street Independent, Bristol, the son of John and Sarah Griffiths. (His mother was possibly the Sarah Chaffey who married John Griffiths at Bristol in 1770.) In 1795 he became a student at the Old College, Homerton, London, a leading dissenting seminary, and in 1799 settled at Alton, Hampshire, where he married Martha Marsh (1779-1840) on 24 May 1804. They went on to have at least ten children. He had been appointed minister of the Independent (Congregational) chapel at Long Buckby, Northamptonshire, on 27 Mar. 1803, and was ordained on 17 Dec. 1804. He held the post for nearly forty years, until his retirement on 19 Dec. 1841 due to ill-health and his wife’s death the previous year. During his tenure the congregation expanded considerably, requiring an extension to the church and the addition of a school. He spent the last twelve years of his life in Cannock, Staffordshire, living with his son Daniel, who was an independent minister. He died there, aged 82, on 9 Mar. 1862, leaving a small estate of under £100. The volumes listed here contain poor verse but are of historical interest in demonstrating that outcasts were not the proprietary territory of the major Romantics but were also the objects of attention of missionaries and evangelicals. Griffith’s tales of sailors, soldiers, shepherds, orphans, negroes, cripples, colliers, and convicts were written as Sunday School Reward books. (Evangelical Magazine May 1862, 308; Thomas Coleman, Memorials of the Independent Churches of Northamptonshire [1853], 272-3; Northampton Mercury 14 Nov. 1840; ancestry.co.uk 5 Oct. 2024; GM Apr. 1862; GRO death cert.) AA
Other Names:
- D. Griffiths