Author: Whitfield, Edward
Biography:
WHITFIELD, Edward (1792-1886: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 14 Feb. 1792 at St. Martin, Birmingham, one of at least eight children of Edward Whitfield and his wife Hannah Balden, who had married in 1780. Nothing is known of his education but he may have been the Edward Whitfield who attended the dissenting Manchester College, York, 1822-3. (His poem, “The Retreat” may refer to the famous Quaker Asylum in York.) He was appointed Unitarian minister at the Old Meeting House, Ilminster, Somerset, in 1823, with a congregation of 150, a Sunday School with 80 pupils, 16 teachers, and a chapel library of just over 400 volumes. He became Secretary of the Dorset and Somerset Unitarian Association in 1826. He married Mary Ann Balden (1790-1870) on 20 Aug. 1813, at St. Philip’s, Birmingham. She was possibly a cousin. They had at least two children. In addition to the work listed here, he published a variety of theological works of which the most important were Unitarian Christianity Defended (1826), Considerations on the Impressive Precept and Encouraging Promise of Our Lord (1831), and Lectures on the Christian Doctrine (1839). He died on 23 June 1886 at Ilminster, leaving an estate valued at £869. (ancestry.co.uk 3 May 2023; Aris’s Birmingham Gazette 23 Aug. 1813; Bath Chronicle 1 July 1886; dissentingacademiesonline, QMC) AA
Other Names:
- E. Whitfield