Author: Hinton, John Howard
Biography:
HINTON, John Howard (1791-1873: ODNB)
The Hintons were prominent Baptist leaders, father and son. James Hinton (1761-1823) served the Protestant dissenters of Oxford as a schoolmaster and minister for thirty years. He and his wife Ann (Taylor) Hinton gave their son, born in Oxford on 24 Mar. 1791, the name of the prison reformer John Howard (1726-90), who had recently died in the Crimea. The boy was educated at his father’s school, had some medical training, and began to study for the Baptist ministry in 1811, but in a change of course he went to Edinburgh University in 1813 and earned an MA in 1816. In 1818 he married Eliza Birt (1794-1874), daughter of a dissenting minister in Birmingham. They had two sons, the elder of whom, John Howard (1821-35), died young—his father’s memoir of him appeared in 1837—but the younger, James (1822-75), made a name for himself as a philosopher. Both were born while their father was building his career as a minister in Reading (1820-37); thereafter he served the Devonshire Square Chapel in the City of London (1837-63) before retiring, initially to Reading (1863-8) and then to Bristol, where he died at home on 17 Dec. 1873 and was buried at Arnos Vale cemetery. He was a strong campaigner against the slave trade and an energetic member of Baptist boards and committees all his life, especially the Baptist Missionary Society and the Baptist Union. Besides the Hymns (1833) which he published anonymously but as “Pastor of a Baptist Church at Reading,” and memoirs of his father (1824) and son, he wrote on diverse religious and social topics, including A Vindication of Christian Missions in India (1826), The Active Christian (1833), The History and Topography of the United States (1834), and The Means of a Religious Revival (1834). (ODNB 18 Jul. 2022; findmypast.com 18 Jul. 2022; ancestry.com 18 Jul. 2022; Henry S. Burrage, Baptist Hymn Writers and their Hymns [1888])