Author: Penrose, William
Biography:
PENROSE, William (1801-79: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 24 Jan. 1801 at Lafrowda and St. Just, Cornwall, and was baptised there on 25 May, the son of Richard Penrose (1759-1819), yeoman, and his wife Prudence Stone (1768-1818), who had married in 1788. Nothing is known of his education. He married Ann Williams (1800-68) on 13 Mar. 1824 at St. Just. They had one daughter. He was ordained as a Baptist minister in Aug. 1826, and was schoolmaster at St. Just (1826-35). He was minister at Jordan Chapel, Penzance (1835-44, 1855-79). He spent almost ten years in London, preaching to sailors and the poor around the Thames in the East End of London. He was minister at Unicorn Yard Chapel, Tooley Street, London (1844-47). He also preached in Shad Thames, Bermondsey, and Cole Street chapels (1847-55). In 1851 he was living in Fieldgate Street, Spitalfields. This was the same area with the same naval and maritime congregations that George Charles Smith (Boatswain Smith) (q.v.) had earlier preached to. They wouldn’t have known each other in London but both men returned to Cornwall and died at the Jordan Chapel, Penzance. After his first wife’s death in 1868, Penrose married Sarah Tresise on 20 Aug. 1869 at St. Mary’s Chapel, Penzance. They had a daughter born the following year. He died on 5 July 1879 at his residence at the Jordan Chapel, leaving a small estate of under £200 to his widow. The Orphan (1826), listed here, may be a response to the loss of his parents in late adolescence. He also wrote a number of religious tracts: True Religion Vindicated (1826), Baptism (1838), A Selection of Hymns (1843), The Immortality of the Righteous (1846), several sermons, and some late theological contributions to the Baptist journal, The Rainbow, 1870-1. (ancestry.co.uk 12 Feb. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 12 Feb. 2023; Bibliotheca Cornubiensis [1878], 2: 458-9; Cornish Telegraph 25 Aug. 1875, 8 July 1879, 15 July 1879) AA