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Author: Watts, Isaac

Biography:

WATTS, Isaac (1674-1748: ODNB)

A prior author, but his work was included in many later collections and his hymns and versions of the psalms were revised by Joel Barlow (q.v.) for an American audience. Watts was born at Southampton to Sarah (Tanton or Taunton), of Huguenot descent, and Isaac Watts, who was imprisoned several times for Nonconformity. He was educated at the grammar school in Southampton and was recognised as academically precocious. A dissenter, he did not attend university but instead studied at a dissenting academy in Stoke Newington. After a period working as a tutor, he was appointed assistant to the minister at the Independent church in Mark Lane, London. Despite often prolonged periods of illness, Watts’s association with this church lasted the rest of his life and he was ordained minister there in 1702. His contributions to religions life and thought were recognised in 1728 by the award of DD from both Edinburgh University and the University of Aberdeen. He never married and lived mostly with the family of Sir Thomas Abney. It was at Abney Park in Stoke Newington that he died; he was buried in Bunhill Fields. Although Watts wrote extensively and influentially on education, religion, and philosophy, it is chiefly for his hymns that he is remembered. (ODNB 31 Dec. 2020)

 

Other Names:

  • Doctor Watts
  • Dr. Watts
  • I. Watts
  • Watts
 

Books written (55):

4th edn. London: Stephen Couchman, G. G. J. and J. Robinson, E. Newbery, G. Wilkie, T. Vernor, J. Parsons, Darton and Harvey, and T. Boosey, 1792
Bath: S. Hazard and all other booksellers in town and country, 1796
Alston/ Penrith/ Carlisle/ Newcastle/ Durham/ Bishop-Auckland/ Darlington: John Harrop/ A. Soulby/ Jollie/ Charnley, Bell, and Whitfield/ Pennington/ Welford/ Heavisides, 1800
London: Taylor and Wilks, Chancery-lane, 1802
New York: T. Kirk, T. S. Arden, P. A. Mesier, and McDermut and Thompson, 1804
Albany [NY]/ Schenectady [NY]/ Utica [NY]/ Canandaigua [NY]: Whiting, Backus and Whiting/ Whiting, Backus and Whiting/ Whiting, Backus and Whiting/ Whiting, Backus and Whiting, 1804
Bennington VT: printed by Anthony Haswell, 1808
New Haven [CT]: Howe and Deforest, Walter and Steele, and Samuel Wadsworth, 1812
New York: Evert Duyckinck, 1816
Hartford [CT]/ Rochester [NY]: Silas Andrus/ E. Peck and Co., 1817
New edn. Hartford [CT]: George Goodson and Sons, 1817
New Haven [CT]: N. Whiting, 1827
Philadelphia: David Clark, 1827
New edn. Hartford [CT]/ New York: Goodwin and Co., D. F. Robinson and Co., S. Andrus, Packard and Butler/ Collins and Hannay, W. B. Gilley, E. Bliss and Co., Collins and Co., White, Gallaher and White, D. D. Smith, 1830