Thomas Scott (1747–1821) was an influential English preacher and author. He is principally known for his widespread work A Commentary On The Whole Bible, for The Force of Truth, and as one of the founders of the Church Missionary Society. [1]
Thomas Scott (1747–1821) was an influential English preacher and author. He is principally known for his widespread work A Commentary On The Whole Bible, for The Force of Truth, and as one of the founders of the Church Missionary Society. [1]
Thomas Scott was born in 1747 at Bratoft in Lincolnshire, the son of a grazier (cattle farmer), the 11th of 13 children. His mother was better educated than his father and taught Thomas to read. He went to various small local private schools before being sent at the age of ten to a school in Scorton in Richmondshire, 150 miles away from home. Returning in 1762, he was apprenticed at 15 to a surgeon in nearby Alford, but was soon dismissed for bad conduct. He returned to the family farm in disgrace and he was reduced to working as a labourer for his father, enduring this for ten years before finally leaving home in 1772 to become ordained as an Anglican priest [2] at the age of 25. As he afterwards admitted, he went into the ministry for a comfortable career, and did not believe in most of the doctrine he was required to preach.[ citation needed ]
Scott was first a curate in Buckinghamshire in 1772, and was appointed to the adjacent parishes of Stoke Goldington and Weston Underwood. In December 1774 he married Jane Kell, housekeeper to a local family. From 1775 to 1777 Scott served as curate of nearby Ravenstone, through an exchange with the curate there.
During that period, Scott began a friendship and correspondence with the hymn writer John Newton, who was curate of neighbouring Olney. This instigated an examination of his conscience and study of the Holy Scriptures that would convert him into an evangelical Christian, as related in his spiritual autobiography The Force of Truth published in 1779.
In 1781, Scott transferred to the curacy of Olney, Newton having gone to London, and in 1785 Scott also moved to London to take up a post as a hospital chaplain at the Lock Hospital for syphilis sufferers. He would walk 14 miles every Sunday, preaching and taking services at various churches, including St. Mildred, Bread Street, and St. Margaret, Lothbury, in addition to his work at the hospital chapel. While in London he started publishing the Commentary On the Whole Bible that was to make his name.
His wife died in 1790 and he remarried on 4 November that year to a non-conformist writer, Mary Egerton (died 1840). [3] [4] During his time in London, Scott was, with Newton, one of the founders of the Church Missionary Society, and its first secretary (1799–1802). [5]
In 1803, Scott left the Lock Hospital to become Rector of Aston Sandford in Buckinghamshire, where he remained until his death in 1821. He kept up his involvement with the Church Missionary Society, taking in trainee missionaries for instruction. [6]
The Force of Truth (1779) is still available as a paperback reprint. It went through twelve editions in his lifetime. [1]
Scott's Commentary On The Whole Bible originally appeared in 174 weekly numbers starting in January 1788, and went into multiple editions. By the time of his death in 1821 nearly £200,000 worth of copies had been sold in England and America (where it was particularly popular), but Scott made only £1,000 profit from the work, having sold the copyright in around 1810.
Scott published various other religious essays, but none was as successful as his Commentary, and by 1813 he was in debt to his publishers for £1,200. He successfully persuaded relatives to buy up unsold copies of his works at a reduced price to clear the debt.
During his lifetime his Theological Works, Published at different times, and now collected into volumes (1808) were published in five volumes.
His son John Scott published in twelve volumes The Works of the Late Rev. Thomas Scott, Rector of Aston Sandford, Bucks (1823–24). These volumes included The Force of Truth, John Scott's Life of the Rev. Thomas Scott and unpublished letters and papers, but excluded the Commentary.
John Henry Newman wrote of Scott as "the writer who made a deeper impression on my mind than any other, and to whom (humanly speaking) I almost owe my soul – Thomas Scott of Aston Sandford." He also wrote that Scott's works "show him to be a true Englishman, and I deeply felt his influence; and for years I used almost as proverbs what I considered to be the scope and issue of his doctrine, 'Holiness before peace,' and 'Growth is the only evidence of life.'" [7]
Scott had two daughters and three sons, all three of whom went into the Anglican ministry. They were with his first wife, Jane Kell, whom he married on 5 December 1774. [8] Jane died in 1790. [8] Less than two months later, with a young family to look after, Scott married Mary Egerton. [4] [9] [note 1] After Scott's death, Mary married astronomer William Rutter Dawes in 1824. [10]
His eldest son John Scott (1777–1834) edited and published both his father's life and his papers after his death. He became vicar of St Mary's, Kingston upon Hull, as did his son and grandson after him, both also called John Scott. There is a pub in Hull named after them The Three John Scotts.
The middle son, Thomas Scott (1780–1835), became rector of Wappenham in Northamptonshire, where he was succeeded by his son, another Thomas Scott. He was also the father of the architect George Gilbert Scott, some of whose early works can be found in Wappenham. A 20th-century descendant of the second Thomas Scott was the radio comedian Richard Murdoch.
The third son Benjamin Scott (1788–1830) was curate to Edward Burn. He married Anne and had four children, and in 1828 became vicar of Bidford and of Priors Salford, Warwickshire. Anne died in 1829 and Benjamin married his second wife, Frances Bingley, on 12 January 1830, but shortly afterwards became ill and died while staying at the Burton Arms Inn in Llandegley, Radnorshire, Wales. Frances was pregnant at the time of his death, and their son Benjamin John Scott was born later the same year, being baptised on 4 December 1830 in their home town of Bidford-on-Avon.
His daughters were Anne, born 29 October 1775, baptised at Ravenstone, Buckinghamshire [11] and Elizabeth, baptised 15 September 1785 at Olney, Buckinghamshire. [12]
John Newton was an English evangelical Anglican cleric and slavery abolitionist. He had previously been a captain of slave ships and an investor in the slave trade. He served as a sailor in the Royal Navy and was himself enslaved for a time in West Africa. He is noted for being author of the hymns Amazing Grace and Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.
Olney is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority area of the City of Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, England. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 6,477 people. It lies on the River Great Ouse and is the northernmost town in Buckinghamshire, close to the borders of Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, and equidistant from Northampton, Bedford, Wellingborough and Central Milton Keynes. It is a popular tourist destination, perhaps best known for the § Olney Pancake Race and for the Olney Hymns by William Cowper and John Newton.
Aston Sandford is a small village and civil parish in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire, England, about 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Haddenham and 4 miles (6.4 km) northwest of Princes Risborough. It is in the civil parish of Kingsey.
Henry Venn, was an English evangelical minister and one of the founders of the Clapham Sect, an influential evangelical group within the Church of England.
William Rutter Dawes was an English astronomer.
George Robert Gleig was a Scottish soldier, military writer, and priest.
The Reverend Thomas Seaton, was a Church of England clergyman and religious writer. Seaton died unmarried in 1741 at Ravenstone and is buried there.
Wappenham is a linear village and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is 5 miles (8 km) south-west of Towcester, north of Syresham and north-west of Silverstone and forms part of West Northamptonshire. At the time of the 2001 census, the parish's population was 266 people, increasing to 294 at the 2011 Census.
William Henry Havergal was an Anglican clergyman, writer, composer and hymnwriter, and a publisher of sermons and pamphlets. He was the father of the hymn-writer and poet Frances Ridley Havergal and the clergyman and organist Henry East Havergal (1820–1875).
The Eclectic Society was founded in 1783 by a number of Anglican clergymen and laymen as a discussion group, and was instrumental in the founding of the Church Missionary Society in 1799.
Hugh Nicholas Pearson (1776–1856) was an English cleric, Dean of Salisbury from 1823. He was connected with the Clapham Sect.
Josiah Pratt (1768–1844) was an English evangelical cleric of the Church of England, involved in publications and the administration of missionary work.
Thomas Pownall Boultbee, LL.D. (1818–1884), was an English clergyman.
Thomas Haweis (c.1734–1820), was born in Redruth, Cornwall, on 1 January 1734, where he was baptised on 20 February 1734. As a Church of England cleric he was one of the leading figures of the 18th century evangelical revival and a key figure in the histories of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, the Free Church of England and the London Missionary Society.
William Goode, the elder (1762–1816) was an English evangelical Anglican clergyman.
Henry Gauntlett (1762–1833) was an English cleric of evangelical views, known for his work on Biblical prophecy.
Sir Thomas Drury, 1st Baronet FRS of Wickham Hall near Maldon, Essex, and Overstone, Northamptonshire was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1741 and 1747.
The Ven. Melville Horne Scott (1827–1898) was Archdeacon of Stafford from 1888 until his death.
Sir Henry Hugh Hoare, 3rd Baronet (1762–1841) was an English banker, a partner in Hoare's Bank, with a particular interest in the affairs of the Church of England.
John Millan (1701–1782), was a printer and bookseller at Charing Cross, London. After his death, his business was taken over by Thomas Egerton and his brother John Egerton.
From: The Booksellers, Henry Dell, 1766.
MILLAN deserving of the warmest praise,
As full of worth and virtue as of days;
Brave, open, gen'rous, 'tis in him we find,
A solid judgment, and a taste refined.
Nature's most choice productions are his care,
And them t'obtain no cost or pains does spare,
A character so amiable and bright,
Inspires the Muse with rapture and delight:The Gentleman and Tradesman both in him unite.
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