Author: Hutton, Hugh
Biography:
HUTTON, Hugh (1796-1871: Birmingham Post)
He was born in Belfast on 13 Sept. 1796, the son of William Hutton, a shopkeeper. The name of his mother is not known. He received his early education at Belfast Academy under Dr. William Bruce (1757-1841). In Nov. 1813 he entered the University of Glasgow (MA 1818) and then returned to Belfast where he spent some time at Belfast College before moving to Warrington in January 1820 as assistant to the Rev. William Broadbent. He remained there until May 1822. In September 1822 he became Minister of the Old Meeting House, Birmingham. He stayed for almost thirty years and resigned in 1851, at which point he moved to the Unitarian Chapel at Bury St. Edmunds and remained there until his death. However, he spent some years in London at 3 Victoria Terrace, Camden, from where he signed the Preface to his collected poems, Gathered Leaves of Many Seasons (1858). He also made return visits to Belfast and acquired some fame as an elocutionist with his “Minstrel Readings” in 1848-9 and “Lectures on the Art of Reading Poetry” in 1850. He married Mary Wilson on 22 July 1823 at Tullhubert House, Moneyreagh, near Belfast. They had a son and a daughter, both baptised in Birmingham. He died on 13 Sept. 1871 at Bury St. Edmunds, leaving an estate of under £2000. His wife had predeceased him in 1869. His sacred musical drama, The Fall of Babylon (1842), and his sermons in defence of Unitarianism are no longer read. (Sheffield Independent 9 Aug. 1823; “Bruce, William,” DIB; Banner of Ulster 29 Aug. 1848, 13 Aug. 1850; Catherine Hutton Beale, Memorials of the Old Meeting House and Burial Ground, Birmingham [1882], 40, 50; Ipswich Journal 18 Dec. 1869; Birmingham Post 16 Sept. 1871) AA