Author: Ring, Mrs. Thomas
Biography:
RING, Sophia, formerly Thompson (1768-1848: ancestry.com)
In English evangelical circles in the early nineteenth century, “Ring” was a famous name. The poet was born 3 Nov. 1768 in Peterborough, Northamptonshire, the only child of a wealthy property owner, James Thompson (1731-1768), and his wife, Elizabeth (Hudson) Thompson. Her baptism took place at St John the Baptist, Peterborough, on 13 Jan. 1769. Her father, who died a few days after her birth, left her a substantial legacy, £5,000 pounds, and a £150 annuity payable when she reached the age of majority or upon the first day of her marriage. The latter came first. She married as a minor on 26 Nov. 1787 (or 18 Dec.; sources differ) at St Laurence’s church, Reading, Berkshire, Thomas Ring (1761-1840), a medical doctor who co-founded Royal Berkshire Hospital. They had no children of their own, but they raised a niece, Sophia Lamb. She later named the girl her residuary legatee. She and her husband were converted to “serious Christianity” by the Rev. William Bromley Cadogan, vicar of St Giles, Reading. With her husband, she became the close friend of evangelical patriarchs the Rev. John Newton (q.v.) and the Rev. Charles Simeon. Newton’s niece Eliza Catlett was under Dr Ring’s care. From the late 1790s, “Amazing Grace” Newton visited Ring’s house annually for his summer retreat. There, mornings and evenings, he conducted “house preachings.” Several letters that passed between Newton and the evangelical poet William Cowper (q.v.), preserved at Princeton, exist only as copies taken from the holographs by Ring and her husband. Also with her husband, she founded St Mary’s chapel in Castle Street, Reading. Together, they were active in prominent evangelical concerns, the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Church Missionary Society, and the London Missionary Society. She died, age 80, at her residence, 25 Friar Street, Reading, on 17 May 1848 and was buried at St Laurence’s church. A monument to her memory on the church’s east wall gives the date of her marriage as 26 Nov. 1787; the monument states her parentage, her date of birth, and the date of her death. (ancestry.com 13 Feb. 2024; PROB11/1933; PROB 11/2075; Oxford Chronicle and Reading Gazette, 20 May 1848; J. Newton, Letters of the Rev. John Newton, ed. J. Bull [1869], 399; C. Kerry, A History of the Municipal Church of St. Laurence, Reading [1883], 163) JC
Other Names:
- Mrs. Thomas Ring