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Biography of John Newton, Author of Amazing Grace

Slave Trader Turned Evangelical Preacher

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John Newton (1725–1807) began his career as a sailor and slave trader. Eventually, he became an Anglican minister and outspoken abolitionist after a dramatic and pivotal conversion to faith in Jesus Christ . Newton is best known for his widely loved and timeless hymn “ Amazing Grace .”

Fast Facts: John Newton

• Known For: Anglican clergyman of the Church of England, hymn-writer, and former slave trader turned abolitionist who penned “Amazing Grace,” one of the most beloved and enduring hymns of the Christian church
• Born: July 24, 1725 in Wapping, London, UK
• Died: December 21, 1807 in London, UK
• Parents: John and Elizabeth Newton
• Spouse: Mary Catlett
• Children: Adopted orphan nieces, Elizabeth (Betsy) Catlett, and Elizabeth (Eliza) Cunningham.
• Published Works: An Authentic Narrative (1764); Review of Ecclesiastical History (1770); Olney Hymns (1779); Apologia (1784); Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade (1787); Letters to a Wife (1793).
• Notable Quote: “This is faith: a renouncing of everything we are apt to call our own and relying wholly upon the blood, righteousness, and intercession of Jesus.”

John Newton was born in Wapping, London, the only child of John and Elizabeth Newton. As a young boy, Newton was nurtured in the Reformed faith by his mother, who read the Bible to him and prayed he would become a minister.

Newton was only seven when his mother died from tuberculosis, putting an end to his spiritual training. Although his father remarried, the boy remained detached in his relationship with both father and stepmother.

From age 11 to 17, Newton accompanied his father, a Navy ship’s captain, on his sea voyages. After retiring from the sea, the elder Newton took an office job with the Royal Africa Company. He began making arrangements for his son to go to Jamaica for a lucrative business opportunity as a slave plantation overseer.

Meanwhile, young John had other ambitions. He went to Kent to visit with family friends of his late mother and there met and fell instantly and hopelessly in love with Mary Catlett (1729–1790). The lovestruck teenager delayed so long at the Catletts’ sizeable estate in Kent, that he missed his ship to Jamaica, and effectively evaded his father’s plans. 

Many Dangers, Toils, and Snares

Deciding to discipline his unsettled and impulsive son, Newton’s father sent the young man back to sea to work as a common sailor. At 19, Newton was forced to enlist in the British Royal Navy and serve as a crewman aboard the man-of-war ship Harwich.

Newton rebelled against the severe discipline of the Royal Navy. He became desperate to find a way back to his beloved Mary and soon deserted. But he was captured, flogged, chained in irons, and eventually discharged from service. Newton would later describe himself at that time as arrogant, rebellious, and living a recklessly sinful life : “I sinned with a high hand,” he wrote, “and I made it my study to tempt and seduce others.”

Newton ended up taking a job with a slave trader, a man named Mr. Clow, on an island off the western coast of Africa, near Sierra Leone. He was treated so brutally there that later he would remember the time as the lowest point in his spiritual experience. He recalled himself then as “a wretched-looking man toiling in a plantation of lemon trees in the Island of Plantains.” He had no shelter, his clothes deteriorated to rags, and to curb his hunger, he resorted to begging for food.

The Hour I First Believed

After more than a year of living in abusive conditions, in 1747 Newton managed to escape the island. He took work aboard the Greyhound , a ship based out of Liverpool. By this time, Newton had begun to read the Bible again, as well as Thomas a Kempis ’ The Imitation of Christ , one of the few books on board the ship.

The following year, as the slave-laden ship was bound for home, it encountered a violent North Atlantic storm. On March 21, 1748, Newton was awakened in the night to find the ship in dire trouble, and one sailor already washed overboard. As Newton pumped and bailed, he became convinced that he would soon meet the Lord. Recalling Bible verses about God’s grace towards sinners that he had learned from his mother, Newton whispered his first feeble prayer in years. For the remainder of his life, Newton would remember this day as the anniversary of his conversion—“the hour he first believed.”

However, it would take several months before Newton’s newfound faith would become firmly established. In his autobiography, An Authentic Narrative (1764), Newton wrote of an episode of serious backsliding . Only after falling ill with a violent fever did he return to his senses and surrender wholly to God. Newton claimed that from then on, he experienced a new kind of spiritual freedom and never again went back on his faith.

A Life of Joy and Peace

On February 12, 1750, Newton returned to England and married Mary Catlett. He remained devoted to her for the rest of his years.

Once married, Newton served as captain of two different slave ships during the next five years. Eventually, Newton came to hate slavery, profoundly regretting his involvement in it and fighting fiercely against the institution. Later in life, he passionately supported William Wilberforce in his campaign to end slavery in England, provided evidence to the Privy Council, and authored Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade (1787), a tract promoting abolition.

In 1755, Newton abandoned the maritime trade to take a well-paid government post as “Tide Surveyor” in Liverpool. In his spare time, Newton attended church meetings in London, where he became acquainted with the “Great Awakening” preacher George Whitefield and John Wesley , soon coming under their influence. At home, he studied theology, Greek and Hebrew languages, and adopted moderately Calvinist views .

In 1764, at age 39, Newton was ordained an Anglican minister of the Church of England and took a parish in the small village of Olney in Buckinghamshire. Finding himself in his element, Newton thrived as pastor of the humble parish, preaching, singing, and caring for the souls of his flock. During his 16 years at Olney, the church grew so crowded that it had to be expanded.

Amazing Grace

In Olney, Newton began writing his own simple, heart-felt hymns, many of which were autobiographical in nature. Often he wrote hymns to complement his sermons or to speak to the specific need of a church member.

William Cowper moved to Olney in 1767 and joined Newton in his hymn writing endeavors. Cowper, an accomplished poet, was brilliant but given to acute bouts of depression . In 1779, he and Newton published the famous Olney Hymns, a collection celebrating their friendship and spiritual inspirations. Some of Newton’s most notable contributions include “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken,” “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds,” and “Amazing Grace.”

In 1779, Newton was invited to become rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, one of the most esteemed parishes in London. All across England and beyond, people flocked to hear him preach, sing his hymns, and receive his spiritual advice. He served the parish in London until his death in 1807.

Blind, But Now I See

Toward the end of his life, Newton developed blindness but continued to preach tirelessly. Well known and dearly loved, he became a father figure to the younger clergymen who sought to learn from his wisdom . When William Wilberforce converted to Christianity in 1785, he turned to Newton for counsel.

John’s wife, Mary, passed away from cancer in 1790, leaving him with a profound sense of loss . The couple never had children of their own but had adopted two orphaned nieces from Mary’s side of the family. Elizabeth (Betsy) Catlett was adopted in 1774, and later Elizabeth (Eliza) Cunningham in 1783. Eliza died as a child, but Betsy remained close to Newton all his life. She even helped care for him in old age after Newton’s sight failed and his health weakened. 

On December 21, 1807, Newton died peacefully at age 82. He was buried beside his beloved wife at St. Mary Woolnoth in London.

Grace Will Lead Me Home

One historian described John Newton as a “brash, purposeful, big-hearted man, who knew how much he owed to God, and was willing to make himself vulnerable and allow himself to be embarrassed in the quest to pay back some small part of that debt.”

Captured in the words of “Amazing Grace,” is John Newton’s life story. Still today, nearly 250 years after it was written, his anthem is sung around the world by Christians of multiple denominations .

From his pivotal conversion until the day of his death, Newton never stopped marveling at the amazing grace of God that had changed his life so radically. As his eyesight faltered and his body grew frail, friends encouraged the aging man to slow down and retire. But in reply, he declared, “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior!”

• Christian History Magazine-Issue 81: John Newton: Author of “Amazing Grace.”
• Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (p. 896).
• “Newton, John.” Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals (p. 476).
• Christian History Magazine-Issue 31: The Golden Age of Hymns.
• 131 Christians everyone should know (p. 89). 
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John Newton

John Newton (b. London, England, 1725; d. London, 1807) was born into a Christian home, but his godly mother died when he was seven, and he joined his father at sea when he was eleven. His licentious and tumul­tuous sailing life included a flogging for attempted desertion from the Royal Navy and captivity by a slave trader in West Africa. After his escape he himself became the captain of a slave ship. Several factors contributed to Newton's conversion: a near-drowning in 1748, the piety of his friend Mary Catlett, (whom he married in 1750), and his reading of Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ . In 1754 he gave up the slave trade and, in association with William Wilberforce, eventually became an ardent abolitionist. After becoming a tide-surveyor in Liverpool, England, Newton came under the influence of George Whitefield and John and Charles Wesley and began to study for the ministry. He was ordained in the Church of England and served in Olney (1764-1780) and St. Mary Woolnoth, London (1780-1807). His legacy to the Christian church includes his hymns as well as his collaboration with William Cowper (PHH 434) in publishing Olney Hymns (1779), to which Newton contributed 280 hymns, including “Amazing Grace.”

Bert Polman ================== Newton, John , who was born in London, July 24, 1725, and died there Dec. 21, 1807, occupied an unique position among the founders of the Evangelical School, due as much to the romance of his young life and the striking history of his conversion, as to his force of character. His mother, a pious Dissenter, stored his childish mind with Scripture, but died when he was seven years old. At the age of eleven, after two years' schooling, during which he learned the rudiments of Latin, he went to sea with his father. His life at sea teems with wonderful escapes, vivid dreams, and sailor recklessness. He grew into an abandoned and godless sailor. The religious fits of his boyhood changed into settled infidelity, through the study of Shaftesbury and the instruction of one of his comrades. Disappointing repeatedly the plans of his father, he was flogged as a deserter from the navy, and for fifteen months lived, half-starved and ill-treated, in abject degradation under a slave-dealer in Africa. The one restraining influence of his life was his faithful love for his future wife, Mary Catlett, formed when he was seventeen, and she only in her fourteenth year. A chance reading of Thomas à Kempis sowed the seed of his conversion; which quickened under the awful contemplations of a night spent in steering a water-logged vessel in the face of apparent death (1748). He was then twenty-three. The six following years, during which he commanded a slave ship, matured his Christian belief. Nine years more, spent chiefly at Liverpool, in intercourse with Whitefield, Wesley, and Nonconformists, in the study of Hebrew and Greek, in exercises of devotion and occasional preaching among the Dissenters, elapsed before his ordination to the curacy of Olney, Bucks (1764).

The Olney period was the most fruitful of his life. His zeal in pastoral visiting, preaching and prayer-meetings was unwearied. He formed his lifelong friendship with Cowper, and became the spiritual father of Scott the commentator. At Olney his best works—- Omicron's Letters (1774); Olney Hymns (1779); Cardiphonia , written from Olney, though published 1781—were composed. As rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, London, in the centre of the Evangelical movement (1780-1807) his zeal was as ardent as before. In 1805, when no longer able to read his text, his reply when pressed to discontinue preaching, was, "What, shall the old African blasphemer stop while he can speak!" The story of his sins and his conversion, published by himself, and the subject of lifelong allusion, was the base of his influence; but it would have been little but for the vigour of his mind (shown even in Africa by his reading Euclid drawing its figures on the sand), his warm heart, candour, tolerance, and piety. These qualities gained him the friendship of Hannah More, Cecil, Wilberforce, and others; and his renown as a guide in experimental religion made him the centre of a host of inquirers, with whom he maintained patient, loving, and generally judicious correspondence, of which a monument remains in the often beautiful letters of Cardiphonia . As a hymnwriter, Montgomery says that he was distanced by Cowper. But Lord Selborne's contrast of the "manliness" of Newton and the "tenderness" of Cowper is far juster. A comparison of the hymns of both in The Book of Praise will show no great inequality between them. Amid much that is bald, tame, and matter-of-fact, his rich acquaintance with Scripture, knowledge of the heart, directness and force, and a certain sailor imagination, tell strongly. The one splendid hymn of praise, "Glorious things of thee are spoken," in the Olney collection, is his. "One there is above all others" has a depth of realizing love, sustained excellence of expression, and ease of development. "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds" is in Scriptural richness superior, and in structure, cadence, and almost tenderness, equal to Cowper's "Oh! for a closer walk with God." The most characteristic hymns are those which depict in the language of intense humiliation his mourning for the abiding sins of his regenerate life, and the sense of the withdrawal of God's face, coincident with the never-failing conviction of acceptance in The Beloved. The feeling may be seen in the speeches, writings, and diaries of his whole life. [Rev. H. Leigh Bennett, M.A.]

A large number of Newton's hymns have some personal history connected with them, or were associated with circumstances of importance. These are annotated under their respective first lines. Of the rest, the known history of which is confined to the fact that they appeared in the Olney Hymns , 1779, the following are in common use:— 1. Be still, my heart, these anxious cares . Conflict . 2. Begone, unbelief, my Saviour is near . Trust . 3. By the poor widow's oil and meal . Providence . 4. Chief Shepherd of Thy chosen sheep . On behalf of Ministers . 5. Darkness overspreads us here . Hope . 6. Does the Gospel-word proclaim . Rest in Christ . 7. Fix my heart and eyes on Thine . True Happiness . 8. From Egypt lately freed . The Pilgrim's Song . 9. He Who on earth as man was Known . Christ the Rock . 10. How blest are they to whom the Lord . Gospel Privileges . 11. How blest the righteous are . Death of the Righteous . 12. How lost was my [our] condition . Christ the Physician . 13. How tedious and tasteless the hours . Fellowship with Christ . 14. How welcome to the saints [soul] when pressed . Sunday. 15. Hungry, and faint, and poor . Before Sermon . 16. In mercy, not in wrath, rebuke . Pleading for Mercy . 17. In themselves, as weak as worms . Power of Prayer . 18. Incarnate God, the soul that knows . The Believer's Safety . 19. Jesus, Who bought us with His blood . The God of Israel . "Teach us, 0 Lord, aright to plead," is from this hymn. 20. Joy is a [the] fruit that will not grow . Joy . 21. Let hearts and tongues unite . Close of the Year . From this "Now, through another year," is taken. 22. Let us adore the grace that seeks . New Year . 23. Mary to her [the] Saviour's tomb . Easter . 24. Mercy, 0 Thou Son of David . Blind Bartimeus . 25. My harp untun'd and laid aside . Hoping for a Revival . From this "While I to grief my soul gave way" is taken. 26. Nay, I cannot let thee go . Prayer . Sometimes, "Lord, I cannot let Thee go." 27. Now may He Who from the dead . After Sermon . 28. 0 happy they who know the Lord, With whom He deigns to dwell . Gospel Privilege . 29. O Lord, how vile am I . Lent . 30. On man in His own Image made . Adam . 31. 0 speak that gracious word again . Peace through Pardon . 32. Our Lord, Who knows full well . The Importunate Widow . Sometimes altered to "Jesus, Who knows full well," and again, "The Lord, Who truly knows." 33. Physician of my sin-sick soul . Lent . 34. Pleasing spring again is here . Spring . 35. Poor, weak, and worthless, though I am . Jesus the Friend . 36. Prepare a thankful song . Praise to Jesus . 37. Refreshed by the bread and wine . Holy Communion . Sometimes given as "Refreshed by sacred bread and wine." 38. Rejoice, believer, in the Lord . Sometimes “Let us rejoice in Christ the Lord." Perseverance . 39. Salvation, what a glorious plan . Salvation . 40. Saviour, shine and cheer my soul . Trust in Jesus . The cento "Once I thought my mountain strong," is from this hymn. 41. Saviour, visit Thy plantation . Prayer for the Church . 42. See another year [week] is gone . Uncertainty of Life . 43. See the corn again in ear . Harvest . 44. Sinner, art thou still secure ? Preparation for the Future . 45. Sinners, hear the [thy] Saviour's call . Invitation . 46. Sovereign grace has power alone . The two Malefactors . 47. Stop, poor sinner, stop and think . Caution and Alarm . 48. Sweeter sounds than music knows . Christmas . 49. Sweet was the time when first I felt . Joy in Believing . 50. Ten thousand talents once I owed . Forgiveness and Peace . 51. The grass and flowers, which clothe the field . Hay-time . 52. The peace which God alone reveals . Close of Service . 53. Thy promise, Lord, and Thy command . Before Sermon . 54. Time, by moments, steals away . The New Year . 55. To Thee our wants are known . Close of Divine Service . 56. We seek a rest beyond the skies . Heaven anticipated . 57. When any turn from Zion's way . Jesus only . 58. When Israel, by divine command . God, the Guide and Sustainer of Life . 59. With Israel's God who can compare ? After Sermon . 60. Yes, since God Himself has said it . Confidence . 61. Zion, the city of our God . Journeying Zionward .

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

=================

Newton, J. , p. 803, i. Another hymn in common use from the Olney Hymns , 1779, is "Let me dwell on Golgotha" ( Holy Communion ).

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)

----- John Newton was born in London, July 24, 1725. His mother died when he was seven years old. In his eleventh year he accompanied his father, a sea captain, on a voyage. For several years his life was one of dissipation and crime. He was disgraced while in the navy. Afterwards he engaged in the slave trade. Returning to England in 1748, the vessel was nearly wrecked in a storm. This peril forced solemn reflection upon him, and from that time he was a changed man. It was six years, however, before he relinquished the slave trade, which was not then regarded as an unlawful occupation. But in 1754, he gave up sea-faring life, and holding some favourable civil position, began also religious work. In 1764, in his thirty-ninth year, he entered upon a regular ministry as the Curate of Olney. In this position he had intimate intercourse with Cowper, and with him produced the "Olney Hymns." In 1779, Newton became Rector of S. Mary Woolnoth, in London, in which position he became more widely known. It was here he died, Dec. 21, 1807, His published works are quite numerous, consisting of sermons, letters, devotional aids, and hymns. He calls his hymns "The fruit and expression of his own experience." -- Annotations of the Hymnal , Charles Hutchins, M.A. 1872

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