Samuel Crowther (priest)
File:Rev. Samuel Crowther, 1769-1829. Vicar of Christ Church, Newgate Street and St Leonards, Foster Lane.jpg (UP C 232, National Galleries of Scotland)]]
Samuel Crowther (9 January 1769 - 28 September 1829{{Cite web|url=https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/54831|title=National Galleries of Scotland - Thomson - Rev. Samuel Crowther, 1769-1829. Vicar of Christ Church, Newgate Street and St Leonards, Foster Lane}}) was a Church of England priest, most notable as one of the pioneers of the Church Mission Society{{cite web|url=http://www.dacb.org/stories/nigeria/crowther4_samajayi.html|title="Crowther, Samuel Ajayi, Nigeria, Anglican". Dictionary of African Christian Biography. Archived from the original on 11 July 2014. Retrieved 1 September 2014.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140711230014/http://www.dacb.org/stories/nigeria/crowther4_samajayi.html |archive-date=11 July 2014 }} and a member of the first committee of the Newfoundland School Society (NSS).
Life
He matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford on 26 October 1787 and graduated BA from New College, Oxford in 1791, also becoming a Fellow of the latter.{{Cite web|url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Alumni_Oxoniensis_(1715-1886)_volume_1.djvu&page=345|title=Alumni Oxonienses - The members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886... (1888; Parker & Co., Oxford), page 323}}{{Cite web|url=https://theclergydatabase.org.uk/jsp/persons/DisplayPerson.jsp?PersonID=26200|title=Clergy of the Church of England Database entry}} He was ordained deacon on 3 June 1792 and priest on 26 May 1793, both times by Edward Smallwell, Bishop of Oxford, followed by a curacy in Barking, Essex in 1796.
He became vicar (later rector) of the united parish of Christ Church, Newgate and St Leonards Foster Lane in the City of London on 17 February 1800, a post he then held until his death.{{Cite web|url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp94781/samuel-crowther|title=Samuel Crowther|website=National Portrait Gallery}} On 11 February 1801 he also became lecturer at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate. He is recorded as ministering to Francis Finlay in his final days at nearby Newgate Prison before his execution for forgery on 9 February 1803{{Cite web|url=https://www.exclassics.com/newgate/ngsupp2.pdf|title=Donal Ó Danachair (editor), The Newgate Calendar - Supplement 2, pages 227-228}} and at Christ's Hospital whilst Leigh Hunt was a pupil there.{{Cite web|url=https://lordbyron.org/monograph.php?doc=LeHunt.1828&select=LeHunt|title=Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron and some of his contemporaries with recollections of the author's life, and of his visit to Italy (London: Henry Colburn, 1828), page 355}} Hunt observed Crowther was "worthy of the talents and virtues of his kinsman,{{efn|Meaning Crowther's uncle Samuel Richardson.}} though inclining to a mode of faith which is supposed to produce more faith than charity".
Samuel Ajayi Crowther took the elder man's first name and surname on his baptism in 1825. The original Crowther died in office after an illness of almost five years and was buried to the north of the communion table in Christ Church - his bust and tomb monument were destroyed in bombing during the Second World War,{{Cite web|url=http://www.speel.me.uk/chlondon/christchnewgate.htm|title=Christ Church Greyfriars, Newgate Street (ruins), and its former sculptural interest}} though an etching of them from the early 1830s survives in the London Museum collection.{{Cite web|url=https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-525550/erected-in-the-church-of-the-united-parishes-of-christ-church-newgate-street-and-st-leonard-foster-lane-london/|website=London Museum|title=Monument to Revd Samuel Crowther, "Erected in the Church of the United Parishes of Christ Church, Newgate Street and St Leonard Foster Lane, London."}} His funeral on 6 October was attended by the Lord Mayor-electPublic Ledger and Daily Advertiser, 6 October 1829, page 2 and included a sermon by the Revd Daniel Wilson, then vicar of Islington and one of Crowther's fellow NSS committee members.Morning Herald (London), 16 October 1829, page 1
Notes
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References
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Category:Alumni of New College, Oxford
Category:Fellows of New College, Oxford
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