Author: SINGLETON, William
Biography:
SINGLETON, William (1769-1832: ancestry.co.uk)
He may have been the William Singleton baptised at Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, on 27 Dec. 1769, the son of William and Mary Singleton, but there are several other candidates. Nothing is known about his early life but in 1798 he set up a Methodist New Connexion School for adults in Nottingham and was joined by a local Quaker grocer, Samuel Fox, who eventually took it over and turned it into a Quaker school. Singleton was appointed Assistant Master at the renowned Quaker school, Ackworth, Yorkshire, in 1807, where he rose to Reading Master but left in 1812 to set up his own boarding-school at Broomhall, near Sheffield. Mentor and Amander (1814) “By a Late Teacher”was printed in his home town of Nottingham and records his experience as a Master at Ackworth where he was noted for never having used corporal punishment. He married Sarah Atkinson on 9 Sept. 1794 at Saint Peter’s, Leeds. They went on to have at least four daughters and a son. They were all educated at Ackworth and he is sometimes confused with his son, also William. One daughter, Anne, married the educationalist George Edmondson (ODNB), a former pupil. Although “eldered” (censured), he was sent out as a missionary teacher to Sierra Leone and served there 1820-1, writing a report on the venture, Results of a Seven Years’ Mission (1823). He returned to Sheffield and when “two negro youths” were rescued from a ship at London Docks by a female Quaker, they were placed with him for instruction for about a year before she returned them to their native villages. He died near Sheffield, aged 62, on 7 June 1832, and was given a Quaker burial. (Friends’ Books 2:577; ancestry.co.uk 6 Mar. 2025; Sheffield Independent 7 Feb. 1829, 16 June 1832) AA