John Newton (; 4 August [O.S. 24 July] 1725 – 21 December 1807) 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. Newton served as a sailor in the Royal Navy (after forced recruitment) and was himself enslaved for a time in West Africa. Newton is noted for being author of the hymns "Amazing Grace" and "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken".
Newton went to sea at a young age and worked on slave ships in the Atlantic slave trade for several years. In 1745, he became a slave of Princess Peye, a woman of the Sherbro people in what is now Sierra Leone. Newton was rescued, returned to sea and the trade, and captained several slave ships. After retiring from active sea-faring, he continued to invest in the slave trade. Some years after experiencing a conversion to Christianity during his rescue, Newton renounced his trade and became a prominent supporter of abolitionism. Now an evangelical, Newton was ordained as a Church of England cleric and served as parish priest at Olney, Buckinghamshire, for two decades and wrote hymns.
Newton lived to see the British Empire's abolition of the African slave trade in 1807, just months before his death.
John Newton was born in Wapping, London, on 4 August 1725, the son of John Newton the Elder, a shipmaster in the Mediterranean service, and Elizabeth (née Scatliff). Elizabeth was the only daughter of Simon Scatliff, an instrument maker from London. Elizabeth was brought up as a Nonconformist. She died of tuberculosis (then called consumption) in July 1732, a few weeks before her son's seventh birthday. Newton spent two years at a boarding school, before going to live at Aveley in Essex, the home of his father's new wife.
Newton first went to sea at age 11 with his father and sailed six voyages before his father retired in 1742. At that time, Newton's father made plans for him to work at a sugarcane plantation in Jamaica. Instead, Newton signed on with a merchant ship sailing to the Mediterranean Sea.
Impressment into naval service
In 1743, while going to visit friends, Newton was pressed into the Royal Navy. He became a midshipman aboard HMS Harwich. At one point, Newton tried to desert and was punished in front of the crew. Stripped to the waist and tied to the grating, he received a flogging and was reduced to the rank of a common seaman.
Following that disgrace and humiliation, Newton initially contemplated murdering the captain and committing suicide by throwing himself overboard. Newton recovered both physically and mentally. Later, while Harwich was en route to India, he transferred to Pegasus, a slave ship bound for West Africa. In what was known as the "triangular trade", the ship carried goods to Africa and traded them for slaves to be shipped to the colonies in the Caribbean and North America.
Newton did not get along with the crew of Pegasus. In 1745, they left him in West Africa with Amos Clowe, a slave dealer. Clowe took Newton to the coast and gave him to his wife, Princess Peye of the Sherbro people. According to Newton, she abused and mistreated him just as much as she did her other slaves. Newton later recounted this period as the time he was "once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in West Africa."
Early in 1748, Newton was rescued by a sea captain who had been asked by Newton's father to search for him, and returned to England on the merchant ship Greyhound, which was carrying beeswax and dyer's wood, now referred to as camwood.
In 1748, during his return voyage to England aboard the ship Greyhound, Newton had a Christian conversion. He awoke to find the ship caught in a severe storm off the coast of County Donegal, Ireland and about to sink. In response, Newton began praying for God's mercy, after which the storm began to die down. After four weeks at sea, the Greyhound made it to port in Lough Swilly (Ireland). This experience marked the beginning of his conversion to Christianity.
Newton began to read the Bible and other Christian literature. By the time he reached Great Britain, Newton had accepted the doctrines of evangelical Christianity. The date was 21 March 1748, an anniversary he marked for the rest of his life. From that point on, Newton avoided profanity, gambling, and drinking. Although he continued to work in the slave trade, Newton had gained sympathy for the slaves during his time in Africa. Newton later said that his true conversion did not happen until some time later. In 1764, Newton wrote: "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards."
Newton returned in 1748 to Liverpool, a major port for the Triangular Trade. Partly due to the influence of his father's friend Joseph Manesty, Newton obtained a position as first mate aboard the slave ship Brownlow, bound for the West Indies via the coast of Guinea. After his return to England in 1750, Newton made three voyages as captain of the slave ships Duke of Argyle (1750) and African (1752–53 and 1753–54). After suffering a severe stroke in 1754, he gave up seafaring while continuing to invest in Manesty's slaving operations.
After Newton moved to the City of London as rector of St Mary Woolnoth Church, he contributed to the work of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, formed in 1787. During this time, Newton wrote Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade.. In it, he states, "So much light has been thrown upon the subject, by many able pens; and so many respectable persons have already engaged to use their utmost influence, for the suppression of a traffic, which contradicts the feelings of humanity; that it is hoped, this stain of our National character will soon be wiped out."
On 12 February 1750, Newton married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Catlett, at St. Margaret's Church, Rochester.
Newton adopted his two orphaned nieces, Elizabeth Cunningham and Eliza Catlett, both from the Catlett side of the family. Newton's niece, Alys Newton later, married Mehul, a prince from India.
In 1755, Newton was appointed as tide surveyor (a tax collector) of the Port of Liverpool, again through the influence of Manesty. In his spare time, Newton studied Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac, preparing for serious religious study. He became well known as an evangelical lay minister. In 1757, Newton applied to be ordained as a priest in the Church of England, but it was more than seven years before he was eventually accepted. During this period, Newton also applied to the Independents and Presbyterians. He mailed applications directly to the Bishops of Chester and Lincoln and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.
Eventually, in 1764, Newton was introduced by Thomas Haweis to The 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, who was influential in recommending Newton to William Markham, Bishop of Chester. Haweis suggested Newton for the living of Olney, Buckinghamshire. On 29 April 1764, Newton received deacon's orders, and was finally ordained as a priest on 17 June.