Person
John Newton
John Newton was an English evangelical Anglican cleric and abolitionist who had earlier been a captain of slave ships and an investor in the Atlantic slave trade. He went to sea young, was pressed into the Royal Navy in 1743 and was for a time a servant in West Africa; after a conversion to Christianity he renounced the trade, was ordained and served as parish priest at Olney, Buckinghamshire, for two decades. With the poet William Cowper he published Olney Hymns in 1779, including the hymn now known as Amazing Grace. His pamphlet Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade (1788) described the conditions of the Middle Passage, and he lived to see Britain abolish the slave trade in 1807.
Songs in history
See also
Cite this entry
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). John Newton. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/john-newton
- MLA
- “John Newton.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/john-newton. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “John Newton.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/john-newton.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘John Newton’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/john-newton (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻