John Newton

John Newton was born on 4 August 1725 in Wapping, London, the son of a Mediterranean shipmaster and a Nonconformist mother, and he was thrust into maritime life at the tender age of eleven, sailing with his father for six voyages before the family’s retirement in 1742. At sixteen he entered the Royal Navy by forced impressment, endured a brutal flogging, and soon transferred to the slave ship Pegasus, where his disdain for the crew led to his abandonment on the Sierra Leone coast in 1745 and a harrowing period of captivity under Princess Peye of the Sherbro people. His dramatic rescue by a merchant vessel in early 1748 coincided with a violent storm off County Donegal, during which he prayed fervently and attributed the ship’s survival to divine mercy, marking the pivotal moment of his Christian conversion that he commemorated each year on 21 March 1748. Despite this spiritual awakening, Newton returned to Liverpool and captained several slave ships, including the Duke of Argyle and the African, before a severe stroke in 1754 forced his retirement from seafaring, though he continued to invest in the trade. In 1755 he was appointed tide surveyor of Liverpool, pursued rigorous biblical studies, and, after years of petitions, was finally ordained in 1764, becoming the curate of Olney where he forged a lasting partnership with poet‑hymnist William Cowper, producing the celebrated Olney Hymns that contained the timeless “Amazing Grace”. Newton’s growing remorse culminated in the 1788 pamphlet Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade, a scathing indictment that propelled him into the abolitionist movement alongside William Wilberforce, and he lived to see the passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807 before his death on 21 December 1807 in London.