Author: Kent, John
Biography:
KENT, John (1766-1843: findmypast.com)
John Kent of Devonport, hymn writer, was born in Bideford, Devon, to John and Ann Kent. He is probably the child of that name who was baptised in the Anglican church in Stoke Damerel on 11 Dec. 1868; Stoke Damerel is now Stoke, a suburb of Plymouth. His father was a shipwright who moved to the Plymouth area to work in Plymouth Dock, renamed Devonport in 1824. At fourteen John Kent was apprenticed to his father and worked in the docks until retirement. He married Ann Philp at Stoke Damerel in 1793 and Grace Hooper, also at Stoke Damerel, in 1830, but he was blind for about twenty years at the end of his life. There was at least one son. He died and was buried in Stoke Damerel in 1843, his will (in which he is identified as a "superannuated shipwright") going to probate in 1844. Although Kent's education was limited, he began to write verse early on. His first published hymn appeared in a collection assembled by the Rev. Samuel Reece for the Baptist congregation of Plymouth Dock in 1799; his own independent publication of 1803, periodically revised with additions, appeared in ten editions before 1861. The tenth includes a biography written by his son. (findmypast.com 22 May 2021; Josiah Miller, Singers and Songs of the Church [1869]; Charles Rogers, Lyra Britannica [1868]) HJ