Author: Westhorp, William
Biography:
WESTHORP, William (1796-1869; ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 5 June 1796 at Castle Hedingham, Essex, the fifth of six children of poor parents, William Westhorp (1755-1818) and his wife Lydia Pary (1755-1806). His education would have been elementary and all his life he was a leather cutter and seller, and sometime grocer. He married Magdalene Coller (1801-37), a Catholic, on 15 June 1818, at Ingatestone, Essex. At the time of his marriage he was briefly attracted to Catholicism, but his temperament and intense religious experiences were largely Baptist. They lived at Great Wakering, Essex, and had at least four children, none of whom survived past 1838. His wife died in late Dec. 1837 and he wrote an account of her life and religious experiences for the Spiritual Magazine (1838). This contained few facts but referred to her “dark seasons” and “seas of affliction.” An editorial note added that she had lost all nine children, but his later journal refers to only four. He then married Talitha Cumi Dowsett (1817-1905) on 21 May 1839 at St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, London. They had six children. By 1861 they had moved to Burnham on Crouch, Essex, where he died on 25 June 1869, aged 73, and was buried at Southminster, with the service conducted by his wife’s brother-in-law. He left an estate of under £450. In 1870 his widow edited his journal of his spiritual experiences and added an account of his last days. (ancestry.co.uk 20 Oct. 2022; William Westhorp, A Brief Relation of the Mercies of the Lord in Providence and Grace [ed. Tabitha Cumi Westhorp, 1870]; Spiritual Magazine, and Zion’s casket, Apr. 1838, 87-92; Essex Literary Journal 15 June 1838; Essex Times 10 July 1869) AA