Author: IRONS, Joseph
Biography:
IRONS, Joseph (1785-1852: ODNB)
He was born on 5 Nov. 1785 at Ware, Herts., the second son of William Irons, a builder, and his wife Elizabeth Smith, who had married in 1782. He moved to London around 1803 and underwent conversion after listening to a sermon by Rev. W. A. Gunn in Thames Street, City of London. He began preaching with the London Itinerant Society in Mar. 1808 and gave his first sermon in a blacksmith’s shop in Dulwich. He then became a minister at Wotton (1810-12), Hoddesdon (1812-15), and Sawston, Cambridgeshire (1815-18), before finally settling in Camberwell, South London. Initially he preached at the Camden Chapel (CofE), but he found favour with congregational and Baptist elements and Grove Chapel was built for him in 1819. It attracted over 1200 new members despite its strict Calvinist discipline. He became increasingly evangelical, supporting the Home Missionary Society, the Tract and Dorcas Society, the Aged Pilgrims’ Friend Society. He also promoted and ran Sunday schools. His sermons were powerful Calvinist performances often with poetic perorations. He married Mary Ann Broderick (1783-1828) on 24 Jan. 1805 at Bloomsbury. They had at least nine children. After her death he married Lucy Chambers on 13 July 1829 at St. Giles, Camberwell. There was no further issue. He died on 3 Apr. 1852 and was buried under Grove Chapel pulpit, where there is a memorial tablet to him and his two wives. In addition to the works listed here, he published an array of sermons and paraphrases of the Song of Solomon in blank verse, Nymphas (1841), and of the Psalms, Judah(1847). (Lewis, 1: 594; Gabriel Bayfield, A Memoir of the Rev. Joseph Irons [1852]; Miller, 390-1; Julian, 571; “Irons, William Josiah,” ODNB 17 Jan. 2023; Ian J. Shaw, High Calvinists in Action [2003], 199-239; MC 7 Apr. 1852; Gospel Magazine May 1852, 250-1) AA