Author: Smedley, John
Biography:
SMEDLEY, John (1795-1865: ancestry.com)
Gratitude: a Tributary Poem (1817), the only known publication of John Smedley, gives thanks for the safe arrival at Madras of a group of Christian missionaries, “dear companions” of the author who has been left behind but longs to join their cause. Some pages of prose notes at the end flesh out statements made in the poem with proof of the horrors of idolatry, especially in India, drawn from recent publications of the Church Missionary Society. Smedley had his wish. He went as a missionary to the West Indies and after his return to England about 1828 kept up his evangelical work around the country and as the Rev. John Smedley played a leading role in meetings of the Wesleyan Methodists. His origins and movements are—partly on account of his calling--sometimes confusing but the census of 1861, which matches other public records, identifies him as a retired Wesleyan minister resident at St. Ives, Cornwall, living with his Cornish wife Eliza (b 1811), and her two unmarried daughters from a former marriage. He had married Eliza (Stevens) Wearne at St. Ives in 1855. All three women gave their occupation in 1861 as “proprietor of houses.” Smedley died at St. Ives on 26 Apr. 1865 and was buried there at the Barnoon cemetery. In the same census he declared his birthplace as Derby, Derbyshire, and he is therefore probably the child baptised on 27 Dec. 1795 at South Wingfield, Derbyshire, son of Frances and John Smedley. He is not to be confused with the wealthy Derbyshire mill owner and pioneer of hydropathy, John Smedley (1803-74), who did not convert to Methodism until about 1850. Eliza Smedley outlived her husband by almost forty years and died at Penzance, Cornwall, in 1902. (ancestry.com 29 Oct. 2024; findmypast.com 29 Oct. 2024; “Smedley, John [1803-1874],” ODNB 29 Oct. 2024; Nottingham Journal 25 Apr. 1829; Lake’s Falmouth Packet 29 Apr. 1865) HJ
Other Names:
- J. Smedley